India's Riddle

...Gandhi's decision to finally act was as belated as it was justified, the Sikhs believed their "Holy of Holies" had been desecrated...

...by the same token, it rankles that his mother effectively pushed aside anybody showing leadership capabilities in paving the way for her son, a political novice...

...Whether or not the extremists are satisfied that they have had their pound of flesh remains open to question...

...Sharad Pawar, who heads a small Congress rival group with the initial "S" after its name, could be the person to provide the impetus for consolidation...

...Of course, should the mood of the country be sufficiently chastened as a consequence of the assassination, there may be a reuniting of the Congress Party—dropping the "I" and bringing back the considerable number of leaders who deserted it at various stages (notably in 1977) to join the opposition...

...These ruffians, who have been slowly edged out since their mentor's untimely death, first attacked the motorcade of President Zail Singh when he arrived at the Delhi hospital where Mrs...

...All this masked the high degree of authoritarianism and undermining of party democracy that she was guilty of...

...erto respectable, albeit corrupt, Congress-I (for Indira) Party...

...The majority of the Sikhs in India, despite being deeply offended by the assault on the Golden Temple and troubled about longstanding grievances, reacted with revulsion to the Prime Minister's murder...

...They are suave professional managers, not the lumpen types that the more impetuous Sanjay drew around himself...

...Rajiv has tried to head off any nascent revolt by reappointing nearly all the former Cabinet ministers...

...So the political horizon is surely cloudy, and most observers are forecasting increased instability and fragmentation...

...Beneath the surface, though, there are murmurings about continuing the past practice of having the Prime Minister serve as head of the party in Parliament...

...The fact that the lines between Hindu and Sikh, Hindu and Moslem are being drawn more sharply these days virtually assures that India will face a trying time in the next few months...

...To add insult to injury, Rajiv, shortly after being nominated prime minister, was also named head of Congress-I's parliamentary delegation, thereby officially displacing Mukherjee...

...Gandhi was defeated at the polls in 1977...

...Once the communal bloodbath subsides, they can be expected to fire their salvos against the ruling party...

...The other is the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu Right-wing formation headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Foreign Minister during the full three years of JanataParty rule from Delhi after Mrs...

...He may not have a very easy time ahead of him...

...It was by manipulation that she succeeded in projecting the Congress-I as a national party, and not by popular mandate...

...The Bharatiya Janata Party is funded by Hindu traders who dominate even in Sikh towns in the Punjab...

...Nevertheless, throughout the North individual members of the sect were the targets of bloody, senseless reprisals...

...A former commercial pilot, he was drafted into politics by his mother against his own wishes after his brother died and has consistently turned for assistance to contemporaries who were his buddies at Cambridge University, in England...

...But as events have demonstrated, the latter still have to be dealt with...

...FRAGMENTATION OR HARMONY India's Riddle BY DARRYL D'MONTE Bombay Nobody in India gave much credence to the death threats against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made by the fanatic Sikh separatist movement (see "After the Golden Temple Assault," NL, June 11...

...Thus the first task facing Rajiv Gandhi, the 40-year-old, somewhat reluctant successor to his famed mother and grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, is restoring confidence in the authority of the central government...

...Rajiv Gandhi's ascension to power will no doubt mark the total eclipse of the goons...

...A much bigger threat, however, may emerge from Congress-I itself...

...Gandhi herself, as I have noted in earlier NL articles, first fanned the passions of Sikh chauvinism while out of power for what she thought would be her political advantage, and it turned on her with a vengeance she could not possibly have foreseen...

...At the minimum, the country does not appear to have a leader who can deal firmly with the Sikh uprising...

...It is a well-established convention in parliamentary democracies that the senior leader of the majority party takes charge in an emergency...

...Already forces that were quelled by the powerful personality of Indira Gandhi are being unleashed...

...Mastermind of the much hated national emergency imposed between 1975-77, Sanjay had inducted a whole set of goons into the hithDarryl D'Monte, who writes frequently on Indian affairs for The New Leader, has recently completed a book on environmental issues in the Third World...

...Charan Singh's new party is a thinly disguised front for rich peasants of the Jat community who have benefited by the Green Revolution strategy in farming...

...Then they went on a rampage, attacking every Sikh shop, home and vehicle in sight and killing the occupants...

...Gandhi was only the first victim and more will follow...

...Neither the political hierarchy nor the intelligence services fully appreciated the tremendous sense of outrage and violation felt by the entire Sikh minority of some 12 million people after the Indian Army flushed out the Golden Temple this spring...

...My own view, however, is less pessimistic: I think it is possible to hope the Indian people will before long realize that the communal path in national politics can only lead to disruption and bloodshed, that Hindus, Sikhs and Moslems have to live in harmony with one another again...

...Gandhi was grooming Rajiv to assume the reins of her office once she relinquished them, the line of succession was by no means clear...

...Loot was as much a motive, if not more, as revenge...

...In Uttar Pradesh, the most populous and politically powerful state, some disgruntled elements have shifted their allegiance to the small Rashtriya Sanjay Manch (National San-jay Party),led by the deceased brother's wily widow, Maneka—which has precisely such nuisance value in tiny pockets of the country...

...Their leaders in London, who are not censored either by official order or by the self-restrictions of editors eager to encourage national harmony, proclaim that Mrs...

...In any case, the caste and communal elements that have been surfacing ominously in India in recent years—as the Punjab situation showed with tragic consequences—will now have freer play...

...At the moment, the nation is too stricken with grief to allow any discontent to come to a head...

...For while there is no doubt in anybody's mind that Mrs...

...In the heightened emotional atmosphere, the militants fulfilled their assassination vow over a full month before the December 1 deadline they had set for themselves...

...Gandhi's favorite and her heir apparent until he was killed in a plane accident four years ago...

...The opposition forces, for their part, have not welcomed the application of the principle of dynastic succession by short-circuiting the consultative process...

...Only because of her political cunning was she able to keep her party together and present herself as the "nation's savior," the protector of the minorities and backward classes, the harbinger of peace on the international nonaligned front...

...The most telling commentary is that she had in the end to rely on her apolitical son to take over charge from her...

...Although their most sacred shrine was being abused as a citadel for armed terrorists belonging to the community, and Mrs...

...Indeed, they may well feel that with Indira no longer a factor, the road is clear for a fight to the finish...

...As the death toll mounted, there was no mistaking the nationwide trauma...

...Gandhi had breathed her last...

...Yet this may not buy him too much time, because in fact he is clearly unable, and perhaps unwilling, to exercise full control over the unwieldy groups that form the Congress-I...

...One of these is the newly formed Dalit Mazdoor Kisan Party led by Charan Singh, who briefly served as the Prime Minister before Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980...

...Certainly, if Rajiv is not able to hold the Congress-I in line, many of its prominent figures may simply gravitate to either of the two biggest challengers...

...And he is known to be unhappy about the way Rajiv was foisted on the party as the one person who could command the confidence of all its disparate factions...

...It is no secret, for example, that those responsible for sparking the anti-Sikh rioting in Delhi—scene of the most heinous acts—were none other than the followers of his younger brother, San-jay, Mrs...

...Here that person is the shrewd, soft-spoken finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, who in fact stood in for the Prime Minister during her trips abroad...

...No one denies that he is at present the best choice as prime minister...