Word: gandhis
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...into the packed New Delhi courtroom. He was George Fernandes, 46, chairman of the Socialist Party of India and former president of the All-India Rail-waymen's Federation, and he was now facing India's first prosecution for conspiracy against the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Behind Fernandes came 21 co-defendants-industrialists, journalists, politicians and others-also handcuffed and chained. With characteristic fervor, Fernandes rattled his shackles and declared that he was guilty of no crime. "We and the chains we bear before you today," he told Magistrate Mohammed Shamim, "are symbolic of the entire...
...central government." Already the prosecution has submitted a list of 575 witnesses it plans to call-suggesting that the trial is being staged as a courtroom spectacular that could last for months. Presumably the government is hoping to demonstrate, through testimony, that the threat of subversion justified Mrs. Gandhi 16 months ago in her drastic curtailment of civil rights...
...following year, on the very day Mrs. Gandhi declared a state of emergency and detained thousands of her opponents without trial, Fernandes went underground. For almost a year, until his arrest in Calcutta last June, he traveled the country disguised as a Sikh, with a flowing beard and turban. Gradually, he organized a resistance movement, published a clandestine mimeographed newsletter and-according to the prosecution-staged a number of bombings. If found guilty, he will face a sentence of life imprisonment...
After passage of the bill, Mrs. Gandhi may lift the state of emergency and may hold the postponed elections. By that time, after all, many of the extraordinary powers of the emergency administration will have become ordinary, a permanent part of India's political life...
Great foreign leaders have always evoked strong emotions among Americans. Churchill and Gandhi, Hitler and Stalin-all had precise images, good or evil, and their deaths were cause for sorrow or celebration. With Mao Tse-tung, it is another story. In his lifetime, he was transformed in the public mind from archenemy to a more ambiguous figure who inspired neither hatred nor love, but uneasy admiration...