India: Another Round for the Lady

Inside the shabby Congress Party headquarters at 7 Jantar Mantar Road in New Delhi last week, the meeting dragged on for more than two hours. The issue confronting the 21-member policymaking group was whether to censure Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for a breach of party discipline. Unhappy with the party’s choice of a presidential candidate, Mrs. Gandhi had sponsored her own man, V. V. Giri, and had helped to propel him to a narrow victory the week before. Party right-wingers, furious with Indira, were determined to punish her. When the meeting ended, however, and the politicians spilled out into the I hot night air, it was obvious that they had failed.

Mrs. Gandhi, beaming like a schoolgirl, had mowed down her opposition once again.

The split between Indira and the Syndicate, as the right-wing leaders are known, has deepened dramatically in recent months.

Ironically, it was the very depth of that split that prevented the Syndicate from moving effectively against Mrs. Gandhi. As the Times of India said in an editorial:

“Where the two sides are evenly balanced, neither can expect to discipline the other without suffering at least as much damage as it can inflict.” The Syndicate’s options were limited, since more than half of the 432 Congress Party M.P.s have now aligned themselves with the Prime Minister.

The right wing was forced to settle for a watered-down resolution expressing “grave concern” over the “factionalism,” the “deep ferment” and “the deep fissures which have developed.” The resolution added: “A split in the party will have incalculable consequences. Let us, therefore, not say or do anything to widen the breach.”

The Prime Minister was jubilant. “Nothing can stop us,” she said. Her recent nationalization of banks that control 85% of India’s total deposits, she made clear, was only “a drop in the ocean.” Other measures that she is contemplating include a ceiling on urban property holdings, curbs on monopolies, an effort to enforce land-reform laws, which are widely evaded, and more emphasis on farm cooperatives.

Indira’s progressive posture has enhanced her appeal considerably. One recent poll gave her an impressive 71% approval rating, up 20 points from last year. Whether she can maintain that heady figure until the general elections in 1972, however, depends on how successful she proves to be in bettering the lot of India’s 550 million people.