India under Desai

Sasth Brata

Since Nehru's death, Morarji Desai has been driven by a simple creed. He believes he is the best man to be Prime Minister of India and, more importantly, he frankly proclaimed this belief all through the post-Nehru era, while he was both in and out of office. It would be no exaggeration to say that this spartan octogenarian was thrown behind bars by Mrs Gandhi because of his candid admiration of himself.

His gargantuan sense of self is untarrnshed by Christian guilt or intellectual ambivalence, and springs from an absolute moral certitude which is uniquely Indian. These are the concluding words of the preface to his only book, published in 1974: I have, therefore, undertaken this venture Of writing my autobiography realising that it was my duty to write about my experiences so that the reader might get some guidance from them when he is confused. • Desai has abstained 'from any form of carnality' since he was thirty-two (fifty years ago) and is a strict vegetarian, nonsmoker and teetotaller. As Chief Minister in Bombay state, while Nehru was still alive, he introduced and maintained total prohibition. He still believes in it.

When I saw him recently in his modest Delhi bungalow, he had risen, as usual, before dawn, done his daily stint on the charkha (spinning wheel), bathed, breakfasted on nuts, fruit and yoghurt, and was giving darshan (audience). 'I hear you like Permissiveness,' he remarked, apropos of nothing. 'These modern fashionable things are very bad, you know. Bad for the nation.' Anyone at all could attend the audience. There were only a couple of police constables outside the house; no armed guards, no security checks.

A close associate of Desai for the past twenty years gave me this description of how he appears to his intimates: 'Entering Morarje s room is like going to the Headmaster's study after playing truant from school. He is sitting alone in the darkened room, spinning, his shaven head bowed as he draws out or winds the long yarn of cotton, like a monk at penance accepting the rhythm of his endless chore. 'A silence for ten seconds. A bit of oneupmanship this, because the old man knows you're there, the secretary having just telephoned from the next room. An imperceptible lift of the head, the eyes look at you, then look down again. "`limmmm!" he says. 'Now, this hmmmm is not the kind of hmmmm that men make from time to time while they are reading their newspaper and their wives start to talk. No, this is the hmmmm of an opera singer who draws his voice from deep down in the belly. A deep resonant hmmmm. A hmmmm which speaks of clean lungs and strong guts, of ghee (clarified butter) and almonds and daily yoga. A hmmmm which is at once an exclamation, a question, a veiled accusa tion. It says: a) There you are; b) Where have you been and what have you been doing? c) Been up to some mischief, no doubt?

'Talking with Morarji these days is far more restful and easy than it was some years ago. The harsh sermon has given way to mellow conversation. Setbacks have softened the sharp contours of his face, leaving no sag of defeat, but smoothing out the tense lines of impatience between the eyes and around the lips; a strong, even face with high cheeks and a long firm jaw. His wrists and hands are large and powerful, his neck muscular beneath the square, shaven head.

He is a straight, sturdy oak of a man, heavier in recent years, but not fat, exuding respectability and permanence. Today, he looks and is fulfilled.' .

What direction will India take under the leadership of this puritanical old man? To get some idea of the country's mood, I travelled round for a fortnight, visiting the villages in which compulsory sterilisation was a recent and bitter reality and the Delhi slums which were bulldozed under orders from Sanjay Gandhi. I talked to journalists, ' businessmen and Cabinet Ministers and, in the city bars and coffee houses, found that the pulse of urban, anglicised, reenfranchised India had once again begun to beat.

The ending of the 'dictatorship' has resulted in an almost hysterical euphoria accompanied by ferocious criticism of Mrs Gandhi. One Cabinet Minister called her a 'murderer' and another 'a damn congenital liar', and both were happy to be quoted. But even these comments were mild in comparison with things I heard in the villages, still seething with resentment about the sterilisation programme. 'They were wicked people', a Panchayat leader said of Mrs Gandhi and her son. 'They were messengers of the devil.'

Among the intelligentsia, there was deep contempt for British Labour politicians like Jennie Lee and Michael Foot who had supported Mrs Gandhi during the emergency. 'They have forfeited the right to be consi dered civilised', was how one prominent man described them. In contrast, the role of the Western media — particularly the BBC — was ecstatically praised. The Minister of Information, Mr L. K. Achvani, told me: 'The BBC broadcasts played an absolutely vital part in our election victory. Villagers had no other access to impartial news.'

But hated though she is, the name of Indira Gandhi still conjures up fear. She is regarded as a political witch doctor who can make unmentionable things happen even in defeat. How can it be, people ask, that one of the principal architects of her harsh emergency measures (Mr Saxena, a retired police officer) now sits on the committee set up specifically to investigate the 'excesses perpetrated under the emergency'?

While many believe that unless Mrs Gandhi is brought severely to book, she will always be waiting in the wings ready to exp loit any fissures in the restored domocratic system, there is also an unspoken fear that a really thorough and impartial investigation might end by embarrassing members of the new regime. Rumours abound that Mrs Gandhi has heavy files, compiled by her intelligence men during the Emergency, about important members of the Cabinet.

For example, the new Defence Minister, Mr Jagjivan Ram, who only defected from Mrs Gandhi's camp just before the election, is keeping a low profile. Journalists have exhumed from the archives an astounding remark he made publicly. some five years ago. 'It is not true,' he said then, 'that I have avoided paying income tax for ten years. I merely forgot about it.'

Another weakness, perhaps, in the new regime is the process by which Desai himself became Prime Minister. He was not directly voted into power by the Janata Par ty, but 'emerged' like Lord Home following consultations with the national father fig ure, Jayaprakash Narayan. It is generally accepted that, initially, Jagjivan Ram would have been the clear winner in a party leadership election — the only snag being Desai's refusal to serve under him.

Nevertheless, the present Cabinet is as stable and united as any Cabinet in a demo cracy can hope to be. The commitment to political and economic decentralisation was firm and absolute among all the ministers I met. And their desire to preserve 'freedom' appeared almost Messianic. 'The prison experience is a far stronger adhesive than most people realise,' the Information Minister said.

In foreign policy Mr Desai responds less warmly to the Russians and has invited President Carter to visit India". In economics, he is a conservative monetarist and believes strongly ii balanced budgets. Defence expenditure is unlikely to be cut, but nor will money be squandered on grandiose military projects.

I don't believe that Mrs Gandhi or anyone like her will return to power in India.

Ultimately, however, the guarantee against a repetition of past events must rest with the common man. The people's faith in democ racy was reflected in a remark to me by a government clerk earning a basic LIO a month: 'If we could teach Nehru' s daughtet a lesson, we can teach these people too. II they don't behave, we shall kick them out.'