Land in Search of a Leader
SHAHANI, RANJEE
Land in Search of a Leader AFTER NEHRU, WHO? By Welles Hangen Harcourt, Brace & World 303 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by RANJEE SHAHANI Assistant Professor of English. Long Island...
...At the moment, the finger of fate seems to point to Morarji Desai as the next Prime Minister of India...
...Menon never had a ghost of a chance: He was a protege of Nehru, and with Nehru's disappearance was bound to be thrown into the wilderness...
...Yet he has succeeded, as no one else has in recent times, in winning the allegiance, if not the adoration, of countless millions...
...Popularity will come after he attains real power...
...And well he might, for he is a first-class organizer...
...As things stand—given the apathy of the people, the grip of the majority party on the country, the absence of a full-scale invasion by the Chinese—India will jog along with a nominee chosen by the Congress party and the great capitalists...
...There can, by the way, be no doubt that Menon has been made a scapegoat...
...All his life he has been his master's voice, and now he has paid the penalty for that...
...Gandhi, whom I have known for some years, is a shy, quiet person who wants nothing more than to be a happy woman...
...He paints her with loving care, telling us that she looks like an Empress...
...Of course, Nehru is not irreplaceable...
...For the time being, he remains a possibility in the distant future...
...In the end, all prognostications about Nehru's successor are futile...
...There is, however, a fatal flaw in his character: He does not know what he wants...
...She would not know what to do with power...
...On the whole, they are accurate, even perceptive...
...Nehru has become a symbol of unity and order...
...This she has never achieved, and therein lies her tragedy...
...In his presence they seem to behave like a hutchful of rabbits hypnotized by a master conjurer...
...He himself has openly said that he will be the next Prime Minister of India...
...Long Island University...
...For Mrs...
...Who will succeed him...
...And I am surprised that he was chosen by Hangen as a possible Prime Minister in the first place...
...At the present time, India is tired of empty heroics and wants someone who knows his mind...
...India is not looking for a knight-errant, but a clear-sighted activist...
...If an appeal were to be made to the masses to select a successor to Nehru, no one would have a better chance than Narayan...
...Gandhi" When Neville Chamberlain tried to justify himself after the shame of Munich, Winston Churchill rose to his feet in wrath and shouted: "For God's sake, go...
...The final candidate Hangen considers is Lai Bahadur Shastri, Indian Home Minister but little known outside Uttar Pradesh, where he is eclipsed by the present Chief Minister, C. B. Gupta...
...Most members of the House of Commons, hearing these words, applauded...
...Not long ago, I had two long talks with Narayan in Bombay and found him to be brilliant but vague...
...The same fate has overtaken General ?. ?. Kaul, another of Hangen's candidates...
...He is popular, presentable, cultured, honest, and known and respected by the outside world...
...Most recently, it has been grappled with by a young American, Welles Hangen, who has brought a thoroughness and a passionate disinterestedness to the question that are truly admirable...
...But now age, which he has defied so long, is getting the better of him and his grip on things is loosening...
...and, worst of all, the world at large does not like him...
...Not the remotest...
...Minister of Food and Agriculture S. K. Patii, though in disfavor with Nehru and even with his own people in Bombay, is worth watching...
...his colleagues in the Government do not like him...
...This constitutional ascetic and sea-green incorruptible is slowly consolidating his position with the Congress party as well as with the great capitalists, not by making concessions but by displaying rock-like firmness and utter integrity...
...He will leave no stone unturned to win Nehru's post...
...Very flattering, this, but not quite accurate...
...He was pulled up by Nehru, and just as quickly pushed down...
...No Indian, not even the most rabid Communist, has demanded the retirement of Jawaharlal Nehru...
...In fact, at the moment Indians do not want a very popular man to lead them, for they know from experience that such a man tends to concentrate too much power in his own hands and is apt to defy both his colleagues and the Parliament...
...Hangen has a soft spot in his heart...
...So the umbrella-waving Prime Minister of England had to resign...
...But did the General ever really have a chance...
...Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister's daughter...
...Desai is certainly that...
...Indeed, the very suggestion of his withdrawal from the political scene is enough to frighten many people...
...This is where Desai scores high...
...Gupta, incidentally, is a man of vast ambitions, ready to employ whatever means are necessary to attain his goals...
...Sooner or later—rather sooner than later, one suspects—he will have to relinquish authority in India...
...To this day, he moves from ideology to ideology with the insouciance of an undergraduate...
...Of course, he may yet confound us all...
...His picture of Morarji Desai, Minister of Finance and the first man on his list, is revealing, though I think he tends to underrate the man's political shrewdness...
...He has, it must be said, nothing of the magic appeal of Nehru, and the great masses hardly know him, but today these things hardly matter...
...Like grains of sand in water, lackies may float up to the top, or sink...
...By joining that marvellous visionary Vinoba Bhave and by visiting every nook and corner of India in a spirit of dedication, he has acquired something of the halo of Gandhi, which is bound to help him...
...But if Patii does succeed, he will have to come to terms with Desai...
...Perhaps an unknown personality may push aside the old familiar figures, though that is unlikely...
...Hangen has chosen eight persons as likely candidates for the Prime Ministership...
...That is how things happen in Asia...
...The age of Nehru is really over...
...author, "Mr...
...as such, his position is impregnable...
...But he is almost unknown by the general public...
...It would be an interesting combination—an Indian marriage of ascetism and hedonism...
...This question has been asked many times, both in India and abroad, and there is no end to speculations...
...Hangen's portrait of V. K. Krishna Menon is fascinating, but history has already overtaken our author: The controversial Defense Minister of India, as is well known, is no longer a member of the Cabinet...
...He has yet to prove himself nationally, let alone internationally...
...Now we come to the enigmatic figure of Jayprakash Narayan, a man who has almost everything in his favor...
...Since I know many of them personally, and some intimately, I am in a fair position to check his findings...
...The new Defense Minister of India, C. B. Chavan, is a very competent man and an honest one, too...
...The public does not like him...
...True, some of his colleagues in the Cabinet criticize him severely—but always in private...
...He is cunning as a crow, wise as a serpent, ruthless as a tiger...
Vol. 46 • March 1963 • No. 6
