Word: andhra
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From the South Indian state of Andhra last week came a stunning and unexpected check to the Communist advance in Asia. This was the place-a wrench-shaped "linguistic state" of 21 million Telugu-speaking people carved out of its neighbors in 1953-which the Communists had confidently expected to make their first political base in India. They talked extravagantly of turning Andhra into their "Yenan," a citadel from which they could subvert the rest of India. They already had 46 seats, only seven fewer than the Congress Party, in the state assembly. Andhra is their kind of breeding ground...
...Upset. Rich and well-organized, Andhra's Communist Party went into the election campaign confidently. Last week the returns from the 8,000,000 voters were almost all in. The Communists had lost more than 80% of their strength in a sudden, numbing landslide. They managed to hold only ten of their former 41 seats against a towering new total of 120 seats for a democratic Congress Party coalition. Andhra's Communist leader, Nagi Reddi, was beaten. India's national Communist leader, Ajoy Ghosh, was reduced to humble mumbling about "my weaknesses and shortcomings." The fundamental Communist...
...Communists had lost ground especially among Andhra's farmers, tenants and literate white-collar workers, who had once been disposed to support them. "I was attracted to Communism," said Krishna Rao, a bank clerk, "because the Reds supported our wage demands and condemned bankers. I participated in meetings where people shouted 'Death to Capitalists,' but I was shocked when I found out that my own household help was shouting 'Death to Exploiters of Toiling Domestic Servants...
...Hard Line. Two months ago, Jawaharlal Nehru, alerted to the menacing possibility of Andhra, flew down to campaign there for two days. His old crowd magic failed. On a wishy-washy neutralist platform (he admired "Communism," but opposed its "methods"), he got nowhere. In desperation, the tough Congress Party politicos sent in one of the toughest of their lot, S. K. ("Eskay") Patil, former mayor of Bombay...
...peasants: "Electricity is being taken out of the water to give to the landlords." They disguise themselves as astrologers to predict that "by the stars, there will be a Communist India." The Communists even pose as holy men, rubbed with ashes, to preach that "the gods want Andhra to be India's first Com munist state." The Communist tactics are many-sided, but their theme is consistent and throbbing: "Five acres per peasant . . . We will give you land!" From Gandhi to Dandies. Less than three weeks before the Andhra election, the 25 top leaders of Nehru's Congress...