Word: gandhis
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India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, 59, is a shrewd tactician who gambles only on sure things. Last month, to the astonishment of her 620 million countrymen, she suddenly relaxed the emergency regulations under which Indians had been living for 18 months, released dozens of leading political prisoners from detention and announced that the country's long-postponed elections would be held in mid-March. By last week Mrs. Gandhi could wish that she had left bad enough alone. Within a span of three days, the opposition staged a vigorous reincarnation and one of her most respected political...
Fear Psychosis. The ease with which the opposition could stage such a large rally, the first since June 1975, may have surprised Mrs. Gandhi. But what really shocked her was the unexpected resignation of her Food and Agriculture Minister, Jagjivan Ram, 68, from both the Cabinet and the Congress Party. As the acknowledged leader of India's 85 million Untouchables, or harijans (children of God), and a Cabinet member since 1947, Ram was one of Mrs. Gandhi's most powerful colleagues. Though he had remained loyal to her throughout the emergency, Ram declared last week that Indians were...
Whatever actually occurred in the back rooms of New Delhi, Gandhi suffered the consequences of the infighting last week as she watched one of her most popular ministers turn against her and join Narayan on the platform at the fairgrounds. The crowd of 200,000 that assembled there that day was more than twice as large as one she herself managed to draw in a similar rally a week earlier. The polite but clearly unexcited behavior of Gandhi's crowd prompted some observers to suggest that the rally participants had been largely recruited from government agencies and surrounding business establishments...
Fernandes, the socialist leader whom Gandhi has yet to release from prison, sees the election as a ruse designed to generate favorable propaganda in the West. From prison last week he castigated the Janata Party and other opposition leaders for participating in "the sham election." Even through the thick prison walls, Fernandes' message came across loud and clear: participation in the March elections, so long as emergency rule remained in effect, would serve only to legitimize the Gandhi regime, a legitimization it most certainly does not deserve...
Indian politics will no doubt continue under a cloud of repression for some time to come. Gandhi has no intention of relinquishing the reins of the government to any of her opponents, regardless of the election results. The Janata has touched and stirred in the Indian people a chord of resentment against the Congress Party that is stronger than any since the party's formation after independence in 1947. Such sentiments are particularly noteworthy. existing despite an Indian economy that is healthier than it has beer in years. Still, Janata has little chance of gaining enough seats to sway government...