Desperate rejoicing
Vor Indians everywhere the last three days of 1984 were markedly different to the rest of the year. At last something had happened about which they could rejoice; but there was desperation behind the joy. By any standards 1984 had been a terrible year for India. There was almost nothing the country could cheer about. On 3 April the Soviet Union launched the first Indian cosmonaut into space, but the vicarious pleasure this event was designed to generate among India's millions was considerably diminished by the worsening situation in the Punjab: in that very week the country was lamenting the murder of Punjab's leading educationalist and parlia- mentarian, V.N. Tewari. May saw Bom- bay riot, June the army enter the Golden Temple in Amritsar. By the repression of terrorism a frightening quiet was achieved. On the last day of October, however, Mrs Gandhi was assassinated by her own secur- ity guards: anti-Sikh riots of unpre- cedented barbarity broke out in Delhi and other cities of the north, threatening to divide Sikh and Hindu forever. And then early in December the worst industrial disaster in history claimed over 2,500 lives in Bhopal. Mr Rajiv Gandhi has now led his party to the greatest electoral triumph in Indian politics. Not only has he achieved the magic figure of 400 seats in the Lok Sabha, it is also the first time in Indian politics that a single party has polled over 50 per cent of the votes cast at a general election. It was more than mere sympathy for a novice who had just lost his mother, it was a vote of fear. Mrs Gandhi had begun to play on the fears of the people, in
particular the Hindus, long before her death. Allowing the situation in the Punjab to deteriorate before she stepped in de- cisively, and then in July toppling the popular opposition government in Kash- mir, were merely two of several such stratagems. In response the caste Hindus had begun to swing to her side. But as last week's poll confirmed, in death she suc- ceeded as she never could have done in life. Latterly Mrs Gandhi's chief motto seemed to be Apres moi le deluge. How right she was..It has been a deluge of votes.
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