THE PRESS TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1980. Empress Indira returns

Press, 8 January 1980, Page 12

THE PRESS TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1980. Empress Indira returns

Faced with a choice between politicians who have demonstrated their inability to govern, and a politician who has shown she knows only too well how to impose her authority, the electors of India appear to prefer the authoritarian hand of Mrs Indira Gandhi. When all the votes are counted later this week she is likely to enjoy an effective majority in Parliament. Enough of her erstwhile opponents will probably attach themselves to her sari-tails to make her majority in the federal Parliament look overwhelming. It is a measure of Mrs Gandhi’s arrogance that she has called her faction of the old Indian Congress by the label of Congress (I), the “I” standing for Indira. The excesses of her two years of rule under emergency regulations between 1975 and 1977 appear to have been all but forgotten after more than two years of thoroughly inept rule by the uneasy coalition which defeated her in the 1977 General Election. - Mrs Gandhi has gone so far as to express regret for some of those excesses, and to shift the blame on to the subordinates, including her son, Sanjay, who were responsible for carrying out her policies. But those same subordinates are still her closest advisers. In her election campaign this time she has made promises which can only be fulfilled bj' strict social and economic controls.

It has been said of Mrs Gandhi, as it was once said of Mussolini, that at least she made the trains run on time. She also introduced forced sterilisation as one measure to control India’s population; she allowed mobs to overturn the decisions of the courts; she gave the police a free hand to suppress dissident groups; she_ restrained inflation, but at the cost of strict wage controls and a total ban on strikes. Once again she is promising her version

of law and order, an efficient administration, and stable prices. The appeal seems to have worked.

Yet the most saddening aspect of the election in the world’s largest democratic country is surely that half the voters could not be bothered to take part. Throughout India, observers report a sense of disillusion with politicians and promises, whatever their political complexion.

Mahatma Gandhi, Mrs Gandhi’s illustrious namesake, once said that “to reach the soul of India, one must go to the villages.” Few of India’s contemporary politicians bother to do that. The result is a grim sense of apathy in the countryside, a feeling that whoever rules in New Delhi, life for the 80 per cent of India’s population who live in the villages will continue to be harsh. That feeling has been compounded in this election by one’ of the country’s worst droughts for many years. Politicians might not be held responsible for the weather, but they have been blamed for dry irrigation canals and for a shortage of fuel to pump water to the fields. Rescuing the harvest, for many Indians, has undoubtedly seemed to be more important than worrying about what Mrs Gandhi might do to civil liberties.

The world outside India will probably be. more concerned about Mrs Gandhi’s success than most Indians themselves. She is likely to take a harder line towards the traditional enemy in Pakistan; she is likely to improve her country’s relations with the Soviet Union and continue to develop India’s nuclear arms. Her victory thus adds to the sense of insecurity in a region already beset by grave problems. There is little cause for rejoicing in the return of the woman who, in 11 years as Prime Minister, earned herself the title of “Empress of India.”