Report on Kerala
BHARGAVA, G. S.
Report on Kerala India's first red state By G. S. Bhargava New Delhi A life-size portrait of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru looks down benignly on the ministers who control the Assembly of...
...No week passes without some Congress faction indulging in political head-hunting in one state or another...
...Nehru's sister, Mrs...
...Indeed, the feeling is gaining ground here that the Communists are the coming party...
...The industrialists are aware of this and seem ready to fall for the Communist offer...
...Since they control numerous trade unions both within and outside the state, they are able to offer peace on the labor front in return for new industries in Kerala...
...Nehru, his daughter and a host of Congress officials have returned from trips to the USSR and Communist China with glowing descriptions of what they saw...
...2. The Congress party has long been plagued by internal struggles for power...
...It was Congress support of a no-confidence vote in the Socialist regime, moved by a lone supporter of dissident Socialist Dr...
...Should events prove otherwise, he argues, the Communists will be forced to overstep the bounds of India's "bourgeois" Constitution and then deposition will be justified...
...This makes the Communists appear highly united...
...But the situation here is similar to that created by the Kuomintang in China...
...As insurance for the future, many Indian businessmen even seem eager to have their sons join the CP...
...Nor are there periodic public appeals to a High Command that can reshuffle a ministry or replace a party leader...
...To sum up, the Communists will doubtless give Kerala the good government it so badly needs...
...Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, now Indian High Commissioner in London, and her daughters, all of whom are married to Foreign Service men, put India's former British rulers to shame with their high style of living...
...This may seem like blackmail, but the Indian National Trade Union Congress, accepted as a free union by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the International Labor Organization, was formed with the same idea in mind...
...The Kuomin-tang was so corrupt and so badly divided by warring factions that the Chinese could not visualize anything worse...
...The Communists will not be swayed by such arguments, particularly since they see the eviction of corrupt officials as a way to infiltrate the Government services...
...In contrast, Kerala's Communist ministers have cut their salaries down to approximately $100 a month and have drastically reduced their other allowances...
...Naturally, this has become front-page news here...
...Its Communist chiefs are determined, moreover, not to be left at the head of an isolated "people's democracy" as a result of Federal control of foreign relations, defense and communications...
...To silence Congress criticism of this tactic they may even reopen corruption investigations against some of the former Congress ministers in Travancore-Cochin...
...For example, things have changed since the days of 1937 when Gandhi saw to it that ministers received no more than about $100 a month as salary...
...The Communists themselves, of course, recognize that they are being put to a test, and they are not free of organizational strife...
...But another section of the Congress leadership does not share this view...
...Furthermore, it can blame failures on a lack of power and easily outshine its Congress competitors in other respects...
...The Socialists attempted to set up an autonomous anti-corruption commission, but the Congress party opposed it on the ground that it would amount to penalizing poorly paid Government employees...
...To further complicate the situation here in India, the ideological difference between Nehru's party and the Communists boils down to disagreement on a few domestic issues...
...otherwise, the High Command decrees that the charges are unfounded and no shift should be made...
...A product of Congress party gerrymandering, Kerala came into existence as a state last November 1. It combines Madras's Malabar district with the former state of Travancore-Cochin (except for the Iatter's Tamil-populated southern tip, which has been ceded to Madras...
...Recognizing that there was not enough land for distribution among all the landless, the Socialists had drawn up plans for moving some people to sparsely populated areas outside the state, and for starting new industries that could provide employment for the remaining landless population...
...Then the High Command—as Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and some of his proteges are called—assesses the comparative strength of the rivals...
...Indeed, he thinks the Kerala experiment will have repercussions on world Communism itself by making it respect the limitations of democratic government...
...The Communists will now implement that legislation (lower ceilings would be impracticable) . They will succeed, too, because in addition to their seven-vote majority they will have Socialist support on this issue...
...In fact, they are divided into numerous squabbling cliques and every domestic and international development is likely to affect their internal alignment...
...Thus it consolidates several Communist pockets of strength...
...Report on Kerala India's first red state By G. S. Bhargava New Delhi A life-size portrait of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru looks down benignly on the ministers who control the Assembly of India's first Communist state, Kerala, and with good reason...
...At the same time, they observed that the areas under Chinese Communist control were being run by honest, hard-working, firm administrators...
...the Congress record throughout the country will simply be matched with the Communist record in Kerala...
...In the final analysis, coexistence here has made it difficult for the average citizen to determine where Nehruism ends and Communism begins...
...for criticizing her father's Hungarian policy...
...To the voter, only one fact emerges clearly: Congress party men are corrupt opportunists, the Communists sincere and honest...
...When the next general election rolls around in 1962, the people will not judge the Congress party by Nehru's personality, his exposition of Panch Shila or even his pronouncements on Kashmir...
...Congressmen themselves had levelled these charges, but they were never looked into...
...Nehru even justified Russia's Hungarian massacre by referring to the Warsaw Pact, and his daughter accused the Socialists of getting money from the U.S...
...Some Praja Socialist party leaders had suggested the formation of a viable West Coast state in which Communist strength would have been diluted, but Nehru and the Communists vetoed this idea...
...Prime Minister Nehru feels that under the weight of his administration the Communists will end up "good boys...
...They were voted out of office, however, before the colonization plan could be executed...
...For Nehru's leadership of the country's ruling Congress party is not only largely responsible for this Communist victory...
...It may surprise the Westerner that an educated electorate (over 80 per cent of Kerala's population is literate) has ignored the evils of Communism and supported it in the name of good government...
...Adherence to constitutional niceties in Kerala could strengthen the militants who want a showdown with New Delhi...
...The only difference is that the Communists are in a position to carry out such a bargain and the INTUC unions, having been imposed largely from above, are not...
...Once stripped of this, the Congress party could not even remain in power on a minority vote...
...But its road is not as difficult as one might think at first sight, because: I. The Kerala government will be judged more by comparison with Congress governments in other slates than bv fulfillment of its election pledges...
...The same attitude prevails where contributions to party funds are concerned...
...The Communists, though, have already approached leading industrialists, including Congress party financier Seth G. D. Birla, with tempting offers...
...Consequently, the accusers and the accused often change places, and politicians switch their factional allegiance as easily as they change their clothes...
...The devastating effect that this will have can be fully appreciated only when it is realized that Nehru's personal magnetism and lofty promises of socialism and democracy have been singularly responsible for the Congress party's successes at the polls...
...As for industrialization, the Socialists could not attract capital from outside the state...
...3. Last, but perhaps most significant of all, thanks to the Congress party the Communists will be able to carry out and take credit for programs initiated by the short-lived 1954 Praja Socialist party government in Travancore-Cochin...
...If the "rebels" are stronger numerically, they are allowed to oust those in power...
...The Socialists had introduced radical land reform bills providing, among other things, for a 15-acre ceiling on land holdings...
...The result, it is feared, will be the emergence of Communist governments in the states of Andhra and West Bengal at the next election...
...it is vital to the CP's continued success and expansion...
...Rammanohar Lohia, that resulted in its ouster...
...The Communists, who were waiting for the day when the "hated" Socialists would fall, remained neutral...
...On the other hand, undue aggressiveness to appease this faction could negate the election victory and run counter to the Kremlin's policy of cajoling Nehru...
...Like the Socialists, the Communists can be expected to work toward rooting out the corruption that flourished under the Congress regime...
...The Prime Minister's son-in-law, who nurses his district by liberally distributing American CARE packages, is the only exception to this...
...Time is on their side and they are in a position to force the Federal Government to assist them...
...World Communist leaders have been paraded across the length and breadth of India as apostles of peace...
...The Communists are certain to revive it and are likely to fare better...
...Although it is the smallest state in the Indian Union, with an area of 15,035 square miles and a population of 13.6 million, Kerala is also one of the most literate...
...Usually the game goes this wa> : An aspirant for party leadership or a ministerial post levels serious charges of corruption, inefficiency and the like against the incumbent and rallies forces to his side...
...The Communist regime, therefore, must tread a very narrow path...
...Their internal bickerings are always on ideological grounds and rarely come to the surface...
...Today Congress ministers, even in the states, draw three or four times that sum, and they also receive a number of allowances, free cars, impressive residential quarters, etc...
...Some Government officials, like V. K. Krishna Menon, are particularly notorious for their extravagance...
...This group sees the Communists acting within the framework of the Constitution, while speaking in a manner designed to preserve their revolutionary halo and make the Federal Government and Constitution the scapegoat for their failings...
Vol. 40 • May 1957 • No. 21
