THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1989. A new Indian P.M.

Press, 11 December 1989, Page 12

THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1989. A new Indian P.M.

India has had its most bitter and bloody election. While it is easy enough to deplore the violence and the attempts in some regions to interfere with the voting, it has to be remembered that India is a country of more than 800 million people and, despite various attempts to thwart the election process, in the end the world’s second most populous nation and biggest democracy still conducted an election that was generally fair and successful. It ended in a close result. That was a considerable achievement and a transfer of power from a family and from a party that has led India for all except four of the last 42 years has been accomplished. The Congress (I) Party, led by Mr Rajiv Gandhi, remains the biggest party in the Parliament; but Mr V. P. Singh, who is leader of the Janata Dal, the second largest party, and who has support from smaller parties, has become Prime Minister. The election means that the Nehru dynasty of which Mr Gandhi and his mother, Mrs Indira Gandhi, were a part, no longer rules in India. Previous breaks in the rule were short-lived and the Congress (I) Party still remains convinced of the magic of the Gandhi name, though some believe it would be better off without Mr Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Rajiv Gandhi won an election after his mother was assassinated in 1984. As leader of his country he has had some important successes, including defusing explosive ethnic revolts in Assam and Darjeeling, and lifting India’s economic growth to about 9 per cent a year. Great progress was made in both agriculture and industry. His failures lay in being unable to resolve other ethnic and religious problems, and in allowing his Government to become involved in corruption scandals. He was unable to pacify a Punjab secessionist movement to establish an independent state called Khalistan. Nor did he find any solution to the dispute about a Hindu temple being built near a mosque said to have been built on the legendary birth-place of one of the Hindu god-kings. The dispute, in one form or another, has continued for about 450 years since the Muslims probably destroyed ' a Hindu shrine and built a mosque there. A Hindu campaign to reclaim the site has continued since 1949. The mosque was padlocked until 1986 when a court order said that it could be reopened. The mosque and temple issue became a symbol for the revival of the Hindu nation that existed before the invasion of India by Muslims. About 300 people were killed in one Indian state alone over the recent dispute.

India has recently made a series of huge purchases of arms and a number of Congress Ministers were involved in corruption scandals. They were alleged to have taken bribes over arms deals. Mr Gandhi was not among those said to have been bribed, but it is believed that he assisted in trying to cover up the scandal. In any event, the corruption charges took their toll. Mr Gandhi had another problem. Rightly or wrongly he came to be seen as remote from ordinary people and usually heavily protected by the Armed Forces. Some opponents made much of the fact that his wife is Italian, not Indian. Mr V. P. Singh was Finance Minister in Mr Gandhi’s Government until the two fell out in 1987. It is expected that Mr Singh, who to a large extent was the architect of the policies which increased India’s economic growth, will continue with the same economic policies. Since being elected he has taken a number of steps which probably give some indication of the direction of India under his Government. He has sought faster withdrawal of Indian troops from Sri Lanka. He has visited the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, and this may have helped to ease some intensity of feeling in the Punjab. Mrs Gandhi’s assassins were Sikh extremists. His willingness to visit Amritsar without a security screen seems to have impressed the people of the Punjab. Under Mr Gandhi, India has embarked on a major arms build-up. Just why this was so is far from clear. One obvious consideration was that India wanted to be treated as a major Power and was somewhat jealous of the position China had acquired in world affairs. Mr Singh will probably be content to allow India to have a lower defence profile and he may seek to have improved relations with some of India’s neighbours, including Pakistan. If India does this, and if it refrains from the further development of nuclear weapons, the Government of Mr Singh will be regarded favourably by many of India’s neighbours and those further away. The most difficult task facing Mr Singh will be the communal problems of India. The reviving Hindu culture will present a challenge to him in keeping the fears of the Muslim minority at bay. Mr Gandhi occasionally played to Hindu aspirations, but his ideal of India was of a secular, multicultural society. Just what Mr Singh has in mind, or will be allowed to do because of his close connection with a revivalist Hindu party, remains to be seen.