Indira Splits the Congress Again

...Nonetheless, the mass desertions of lower-rung leaders and cadre before and after the March elections had already thoroughly demoralized the Congress And no sooner did the division take place than the two factions began squabbling over property, funds and even the party symbol, the cow and the calf All this recalled the unseemly wrangles that beset the Congress in 1969, with one critical difference Mrs Gandhi did not hold the upper hand But the Reddi-Chavan group that does is not sanguine For it is well aware that should a national crisis develop, Indira's populist, messianic demagogy might convince the people to look her way once more...

...No matter what emerges from this tumult, one thing is certain, at least for the near future The split in Congress has laid to rest any hopes for a two-party system along Westminster lines This means that money, expedience and regional sentiment will keep playing a decisive role in the chaos that marks the Indian political scene—a chaos, though, that is infinitely preferable to the "orderliness" of Indira Gandhi's emergency rule Darryl D'MONTE is the assistant editor ol the Times ot India...

...A PARTY ON ITS LAST LEGS Indira Splits the Congress Again BY DARRYL D'MONTE Bombay The die was cast December 18 when Indira Gandhi resigned fiom the Congress party, which she headed prior to her defeat at the polls last March On Christmas Day, she held a parallel "national" convention By early lanuary it was olliLial The C ongicss had again split...

...Janata, of course, is watching the Congress battle from the sidelines with unconcealed glee Yet any elation on its part may be premature, for it is having its own troubles An example was the embarrassment caused by Home Minister Charan Singh's attempt to put Indira behind bars, when his intelligence officials had not done their homework In addition, the "progressive" coalition elements?mainly the Socialist party—are unhappy about the rise of the communal forces represented by the fanatic Rashtnya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Jana Sangh Indeed, many observers think that Janata will prove to be a temporary coalition and that new alignments will soon appear One straw in the wind is the invitation to join Janata that Atal Behan Vajpayee (the capable foreign minister, viewed as a potential candidate for the prime ministership) is said to have issued to the Reddi-Chavan faction It appears unhkely that this will happen What is within the realm of possibility is that Defense Minister Jagjivan Ram—who has commented publicly that Janata has not become a closely-kmt body—and Petroleum Minister H N Bahaguna will stray and form an entirely new party...

...and Indira had demonstrated that she would go to any lengths to preserve her personal power—including finally destroying the 93-year-old organization that led India to independence and presided over the country's varying fortunes for 30 years thereafter And make no mistake The Congress, for all intents and purposes, is dead What remains of it is Indira's faction with minority support throughout the nation, and the larger remnant temporarily guided by party President Brahmananda Reddi and Y B Cha-van, the party's leader in Parliament The power struggle had been brewing for months But once Indira realized that the present leadership was in no mood to toe her line—Chavan and others had repeatedly called for a return to the principle of collective rule—she had two choices She could bide her time and wait for the furor over the repressive emergency she had imposed on the country to die down, or she could force a confrontation What made her move now was a court summons from the commission of inquiry headed bv the venerable Justice J C Shah, who is stngle-handedlv examining about 20,000 allegations of abused authority under the emergency and has already documented a good many of them Indira had refused the commission's earlier requests to attend the hearing and answer specific charges, and she was determined not to talk even though the summons carried the risk of a six-month jail sentence or a heavy fine In taking the desperate step of splitting the Congress, she apparently hoped to isolate those like Chavan and Reddi who had been insisting that she admit her misdeeds to prevent the rest of the party from being tarnished by them The strategy not only failed but may backfire Most high ranking Congress members had gone along with Indira to the extent of trying not to help the commission Now that she is on a different side, there is no reason to hold back what could prove to be extremely damaging disclosures A little earlier in this sordid drama, the tormer Prime Minister gained some leverage from the ruling Janata party s abortive attempt to arrest her on criminal charges that could not be substantiated in court (see "Mrs Gandhi's Shifting Fortunes," NL, November 7, 1977) Her release following a mght's custody, and her subsequent triumphant tour of some parts of the country, prompted many observers to reconsider her chances for a relatively quick comeback Later, however, she was greeted with hostile demonstrations in the South, where people were supposed to have been unaffected by the "Janata wave" that swept the elections The limited appeal Mrs Gandhi continues to have stems m part from the fact that, despite the terror she unleashed during the emergency, she is the daughter of Pandit Nehru in a land where this still matters a great deal Even more important, the country's minorities tend to see her—quite mistakenly—as the one who can save them from the communal, chauvinist forces that have surfaced with the rise of Janata The Muslims, for instance, suffered great humiliation at her hands (the slum demolition around the older areas of Delhi and forced sterilization), yet believe they would be better off under her kind of government than one dominated by the Jana Sangh, the major component of the four-party Janata coalition and avowedly Hindu in outlook Similarly, the Harijans, or untouchables, who comprise 90 million people, feel Indira gave them the only new deal they ever got (although her 20-pomt program, ushered in during the emergency, promised much and delivered little) When Indira first split the Congress m 1969, she portrayed the battle as one between the reactionary old guard and the forces of progress While there was only a shred of truth to that interpretation—the basic issue then, as now, being a struggle for power?her slogan of Ganbi Hatao (Banish Poverty) caught the imagination of the population This time, her popularity among the Muslims and Harijans notwithstanding, the majority of the nation is against her, the surprising support she has received from the state of Tamil Nadu, where a regional party is in power, can be explained more in terms of local factional politics than of loyalty to her Moreover, unlike 1969, the anti-In-dira sentiment is shared by an overwhelming proportion of the Congress When a precise tally is completed, it is expected to show that at most a third of the 700-member policymaking All India Congress Committee followed her This would be consistent with what occurred in the party's Working Committee, where she pulled away seven out of a total of 21 members...

...Of the old cronies who have marched off with Mrs Gandhi—such as the former information and broadcasting minister, V C Shukla, and the party boss of Uttar Pradesh (India's most populous state), Kamalpati Tnpathi —none wields significant power anymore The sole exception may be former Defense Minister Bansi Lai, who remains a man to be reckoned with in his home state of Haryana, but he too is under investigation for excesses committed during the emergency...