SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
In a glib way, I used to remark that Calcutta was the only town in which I would be inclined to join the Communist party. The drive in from Dum-dum, where the bullets came from, to Chowringhee and the hotels and clubs and monuments of the Raj, skirts the edges of Calcutta's slums: and no slums that I have seen are as bad as those of Calcutta. The more I dwell retrospectively upon the many visits I base made to India, the more warmth I feel towards it and the more sympathy for it. Absence makes the mind less irritable. Indira Gandhi's electoral triumph reminds us all that representative govern- ment still survives in India, which, from being the brightest jewel in the imperial crown has now become the best exemplar of the imperial legacy. That this huge sub-con- linent and its five hundred million peasants can conduct, survive and sustain general elections, the inescapable corruptions of the Congress party, the fanatics of the op- positions. and the multilingual debates of the Lok Sabha cannot but be a source of pride to this country and to India alike. In her efforts to govern the world's largest democracy, the daughter of Pandit Nehru and widow of a journalist called Feroze Gandhi (no relation to the Mahatma) has earned and deserves the good wishes of us all.
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