Political Commentary

Tryst with despotism?

John Grigg

On 14 August I947—twenty-nine years ago last Saturday—Jawaharlal Nehru made the Speech of his life. Addressing the Indian constituent assembly as the moment of indePendence was approaching, he said: 'Long years ago , we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge .. . At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps. India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes . . . when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and When the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.'

Those were noble words, spoken by a noble man. Nehru was a true patriot because he was also a true.democrat. He knew that freedom had to mean more than independence of foreign rule; it had to mean, also, the guarantee of essential civil liberties, including free elections and a free press.

And he was as good as his word. During his long premiership he made many mistakes. but on the vital libertarian issue he never broke faith with the Indian people. Conscious of possessing a masterful temperament he controlled it well and would not abuse the power that his immense popularity gave him.

But what has been happening since 26 June of last year? Nehru's 'tryst with destiny' seems to have been turned into a tryst with despotism—and by his own daughter. Though she maintains, and probably believes, that the dictatorship she has established is only temporary, history Shows, alas, that such regimes tend to be self-perpetuating, and that the longer they last the harder they are to undo, except by revolution.

When I first met Indira Gandhi nearly twenty years ago, in her father's house, I was immediately struck by her air of calm and rather mysterious strength. She is a remarkable woman,. intelligent without being intellectual. shrewd on the whole about people, thoroughly Indian in outlook (as her father , was not), reserved but never pompous; capable, above all, of extraordinary courage and, when so minded, of swift, decisive action.

If that were the whole picture India Would indeed be lucky, but unfortunately it is not the whole picture. There are flaws in ,rvIrs Gandhi's character, which have recentl y become more conspicuous than her virtues. Her decisiveness is largely confined to occasions when there is a direct threat to her Qwn Power. Between-whiles she is prone to inertia and drift, allowing unnecessary crises to develop. She lacks not only her father's ideas, but also apparently his idealism, more especially his unshakeable allegiance to free institutions. Worst of all,

perhaps, her good judgment of people does not apply to her younger son. Sanjay, who is exploiting the emergency for his own ends.

Of course the opposition parties were behaving outrageously in June 1975, but the measures that she resorted to were grossly excessive even at the time. Moreover, it was almost entirely her own fault that matters had got so badly out of hand.

Too much attention has been paid to the charge against her of electoral 'corruption', and the adverse verdict in the court at

Allahabad. Of far greater significance was the mid-term election in the state of Gujarat, which Mrs Gandhi %■as blackmailed into holding and whose result was a personal humiliation for her.

The election was held because she did not stand firm against a threat by her old rival, Morarji Desai, that he would fast to death unless she would agree to hold it. This uncharacteristic loss of nerve contrasts oddly with the firmness shown by the British viceroy. Lord Linlithgow, when faced with' a similar threat by Mahatma Gandhi in 1942. Gandhi was a revered world figure, yet Linlithgow was prepared. if necessary, to let him die.

Morarji's stature was in no way comparable with Gandhi's, and he was defying not a foreign autocrat but the democratic ally elected Prime Minister of India. All the same, his blackmail worked. Perhaps Mrs Gandhi was confident that her 'magic' would win the election for her party, even though the circumstances were unfavour

able. If so, she made a terrible miscalculation. In spite of campaigning for all she was worth she did not bring victory to the Congress.

The reverse in Gujarat gravely impaired her prestige within the party, so that her position in it was by no means secure when the Allahabad judgment raised the question of her resignation. Apart from the opposi tion clamour, there was some feeling among her own supporters that she ought to go. at least for a time.

It was necessary for her to do something drastic to regain the initiative. The declar ation of emergency was a pre-emptive strike against dissident Congressmen no less than against the opposition. But it was a preemptive strike with far too wide a margin of 'overkill'.

Action was certainly required. and decisions had to be taken, for the country's sake. In many spheres there was indiscipline verging on anarchy. But this was not due to any weakness in the constitution; it was due, rather, to Mrs Gandhi's failure to make timely use of the powers she possessed.

Much is now claimed for the emergency. Inflation is said to be down. twoductivity up; smugglers and hoarders have been arrested; public officials are doing their duty competently and honestly, workers are happy in their work, students are immersed in their books; the whole country feels 'liberated' and—needless to say—the trains run on time.

With the government monopolising in

formation it is impossible, to check these claims, but some are doubtless partly true.

For one thing Mrs Gandhi has been lucky with the weather. But the tragedy is that any Fenuine good accruing since the emergency

is being taken as evidence that democracy failed and that only authoritarian methods can work in a country like India.

Everything that the sceptics—and oldfashioned imperialists—used to say is thus being spuriously confirmed by one who should have been the proudest upholder of India's democratic experiment, which was

proving to the whole world that people did not have to he rich or educated to enjoy civil liberties.

It is fair to ask why, if the emergency is so popular, there has been no election or referendum to demonstrate its popularity. And it is even more pertinent to ask why Mrs Gandhi has allowed her son. Sanjay. to become the most powerful man in India.

Newspapers are instructed to give frontpage treatment to all that he does and says.

When he arrives in a 'state he is met at the airport by the chief minister, and his word is virtually law. Yet he is not even a member of parliament.

He is bidding for the support of youth, even having the effrontery to suggest that the country should be governed by people under.

fifty. (His mother is fifty-eight.) He also appeals to businessmen, because he is openly anti-communist and favours free enterprise. His model seems to be the Shah of Iran.

India would benefit from less socialism and bureaucratic control of the economy, but it cannot be said too often or too emphatically that political freedom is the top priority. Sooner or later autocracy becomes inefficient as well as oppressive.

• The other day Mrs Gandhi attacked foreign critics of her regime who did not support India 'in the past when there were no restrictions'. There were, indeed, too many who failed to appreciate India's heroic achievement as the outstanding, almost unique, exemplar of freedom in the Third World.

But those of

us who did appreciate it. and who supported free India to the best of our ability against its enemies and detractors, are perhaps entitled to criticise what Mrs Gandhi has done, and to implore her—at whatever cost in power, 'face' and motherlove—to restore the freedoms that she has taken away.

To do so would be the hardest act of her career, but it would also be the bravest and best.