Word: gandhis
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...only U.S. newsmagazine with a fully staffed bureau operation in New Delhi, TIME was prepared for swift action when a wire-service ticker flashed the news of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination. Bureau Chief Dean Brelis, who had seen Mrs. Gandhi only two weeks earlier, instantly began gearing up for his own extensive reporting duties. He assigned Reporter K.K. Sharma to gather a profile of new Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and asked Bureau Manager Deepak Puri and Researcher Arti Ahluwalia to pull together background material on Mrs. Gandhi. Brelis also obtained, exclusively for TIME, the last known photos...
Unfortunately, the current ill-health of the Indian body politic and the assassination itself are part of a tragedy whose seeds Gandhi more than anyone else helped to sow. But it is a tragedy of choice, not necessity. India's is a system carefully constructed to allow for federal authority while preserving local autonomy; to forge a national culture while respecting inevitable ethnic differences. In recent years Gandhi demonstrated an alarming disregard for the laws of ethnic arithmetic and the system of constitutional checks and balances which must govern India if she is to live in peace...
Under her stewardship, the Congress Party passed from being a representative of all nationalist elements regardless of religion to one of narrow Hindu interests. As Gandhi's craving for absolute power grew her toleration of rival parties diminished. She frequently relied on the constitutional clause investing the central government with the power to overthrow democratically elected state governments, a clause her predecessors judiciously ignored. On issues where her father tread lightly she became confrontational...
...murder of Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards was an act of unconscionable terrorism in a time increasingly characterized by political violence. The Punjabi Sikhs have repeated clashed with the government in their desire for an independent state, most recently in the government's bloody raid last June on the Sikh shrine at Amritsar that was being used as a base for Sikh separatists. Although we cannot tolerate acts of terrorism by any group, be it Sikhs, Palestinians or Irish, we understand that they multiply in times of frustration on issues of ethnicity and autonomy and abstinence on the part...
Where to from here? While we hope that Rajiv Gandhi learned much in the way of political skill during his two year apprenticeship under his mother, we also hope that he has vision enough to see the error of her ways. He should proceed as planned with the January elections and prove that the democratic process is alive and not endangered by nepotism. The future of a united India depends not on the extension of family rule but the health of democratic institutions. In the past these institutions have displayed a remarkable resilience. India weathered two years of emergency rule...