India a Landslide for Gandhi

They scattered across the length and breadth of India like figures in a mythic carnival, 5,418 candidates in all, from 27 different political parties. Some wooed voters from the backs of elephants and camels; some swooped down in private helicopters; others traveled amid a cacophony of acrobats and magicians and drums.

In the former princely state of Gwalior, a scion of maharajahs, Madhavrao Scindia, 39, the local candidate for Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress (I) Party, courted voters after descending each day from his sumptuous palace amid a swirl of liveried servants; just as faithfully every morning, his mother regally journeyed from the palace to campaign for an opposition party. In the southern town of Madhuranthakam, a disgruntled politician, who had been refused a place on the party ticket by the Prime Minister, plunged the local election into chaos by persuading 84 people to join him in running as independent candidates. Having somehow been appeased, however, the malcontent withdrew from the race and the 84 others followed his example. And in the impoverished northern backwater of Amethi, where Prime Minister Gandhi was pitted against Maneka Gandhi, the widow of his younger brother Sanjay, sleepy villages came alive with Rajiv buttons, Rajiv banners, Rajiv posters and Rajiv hats. YOU LOOK AFTER THE COUNTRY, RAJIV, advised a sign on a mud- brick wall. WE’LL LOOK AFTER AMETHI.

The promise was kept. At week’s end Rajiv, 40, was coasting to a landslide victory in Amethi and in the country at large. In an election whose central issue was Gandhi himself, the 379 million voters who converged upon 479,000 polling places during three days last week gave the new leader an overwhelming vote of confidence. With 90% of the races decided, Gandhi’s Congress (I) appeared to have carried at least 400 of the 508 contested seats in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of Parliament, while winning more than 50% of the popular vote for the first time in history. Just two months after he was propelled into power by his mother’s assassination at the hands of two Sikh bodyguards, and less than four years after he entered politics as Amethi’s Member of Parliament, Gandhi had won decisive control of the world’s largest democracy.

The decisive mandate reflected in part a longing in Gandhi’s unsettled country for security and continuity. Constantly sounding the theme of national unity, the unassuming former Indian Airlines pilot faithfully hewed to the creed of democratic socialism propounded by his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru and perpetuated by his mother. But while providing a sense of national stability, he offered the prospect of a modern new face for his country. “If it’s a landslide,” he said not long before the election, “we would have to interpret that as a mandate for change.” Buoyed by his victory, the businesslike Gandhi is expected to set about his ambitious goal of liberating India from the corruption and strong-willed central rule associated with his mother’s reign and ushering in a new era of efficiency and high technology.

Gandhi has already established a special task force to untangle the government’s mess of red tape. On grounds of inefficiency, indolence or corruption, he forbade 103 Congress (I) colleagues to run for re-election. “He is open to new ideas,” says K. Natwar Singh, one of India’s senior diplomats and now a Congress (I) politician. “He will combine tradition with innovation. He is modern-minded and secular.”

Perhaps Gandhi’s greatest advantage during the campaign was a badly divided opposition. Had Indira Gandhi been contesting the election, her foes could have made capital out of her increasingly authoritarian ways. Stripped of that rallying motive, however, Rajiv’s opposition could muster no direction, no unity and no potential leader to set against the familiar name of Gandhi. In many constituencies, the Congress (I) candidate won almost by default as three or four opposition rivals crowded the ballot, taking votes away from one another. Moreover, while Congress (I) fielded candidates in 492 constituencies, only one party, the Bharatiya Janata, had as many as 226 contestants; as a result, no opposition party had a chance of winning a clear majority. The opposition’s disarray tended to undercut the parties’ promises of a coalition government.

By contrast, Gandhi, often accompanied by his Italian-born wife Sonia, displayed a winning blend of confidence and diffidence that belied his reputation as an introvert. He did, to be sure, shy away from the worst excesses of the campaign trail: when adoring women fell at his feet, he would lean over, with some embarrassment, and gently urge them to rise. Nonetheless, while addressing crowds in more than 200 cities and towns during the three- week campaign, the man known as Mr. Clean remained categorical in enunciating his principles. “We will not tolerate dishonesty in any form,” he announced during his final days on the hustings.

Unlike his mother, who would sometimes come to decisions by consulting astrologers, Rajiv is more likely to consider statistics. The pragmatic new Prime Minister believes in market-research surveys, business-school theories and computer read-outs. He did not hesitate to suggest a cleaning-up of the sacred but polluted Ganges River, and even hired a Bombay advertising agency to work on his campaign. In marked contrast with his mother, Rajiv readily listens to experts and chooses to rule by consensus.

That spirit has been evident in the various programs pursued by Gandhi and a small inner circle of like-minded young technocrats. The most trusted of Gandhi’s advisers are Arun Nehru, his third cousin, and Arun Singh, a former classmate at the exclusive Doon School. Both have established themselves as successful businessmen with a gift for marketing. As Congress (I)’s powerful general secretary in command of the campaign, the tough-minded Nehru drew up the party’s list of candidates and supervised the spending of around $100 million in campaign funds. The suave, soft-spoken Singh has effectively been acting as a Deputy Prime Minister, mediating between the Prime Minister and his government. Another of Rajiv’s close associates is Movie Star Amitabh Bhachan, known as the Burt Reynolds of India’s booming movie industry. His usefulness to Gandhi has been as a symbol of someone rich and famous enough to stand above the temptations of politics.

In foreign policy, Gandhi is expected to remain faithful to his mother’s declarations of nonalignment. But as the first Prime Minister to have grown up since India’s independence 37 years ago, Rajiv brings to the job fewer memories of a bloody past than did his predecessors. Some political analysts in India predict that he may prove more flexible than his mother toward the U.S., yet firmer toward neighboring Pakistan. “We’re happy about the way Pakistan talks about peace,” Gandhi told a group of reporters last month, “but we’re not happy about their actions, which do not describe peace. They warmly welcomed the militant Sikhs. They give shelter and aid to hijackers. They are arming themselves. These are not actions conducive to friendly relations.”

That is not the only problem Gandhi has inherited. He must appease the Sikhs, whose separatist cause in Punjab has led to two years of turmoil, culminating in Indira Gandhi’s murder. He must accommodate the Muslims, who represent an 11% minority and were, in certain states, advised by religious leaders to vote against Congress (I). Above all, he must confront the task of bringing modern practices to a country that still venerates ageless traditions.

From the beginning, Rajiv Gandhi has accepted these challenges with a minimum of fuss. When his mother’s death suddenly placed him in the Prime Minister’s office, “he did not wring his hands and say, ‘It’s too much for me,’ ” recalls one of his advisers. “He did not panic. He simply said, ‘Let’s get down to business.’ “