Tough Times for T.T.K.

Last week, Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri made the first change in his Cabinet since he took office 18 months ago. It was no minor matter. Out went T. T. (for Tiruvallur Thattai) Krishnamachari, 66, Shastri's strong-willed Minister of Finance.

Technically, T.T.K. quit. In fact, he was sacked for possessing a personality incompatible with those of Shastri and his other ministers. A brilliant, impatient holdover from Nehru's Cabinet, Krishnamachari ran the country's finances as a one-man show, imposed harsh restrictions on the foreign firms in India, and conducted a running fight with the World Bank, which criticized his policies as too restrictive. Contemptuous of his colleagues, he called one minister a "constipated cockroach," advised another to return to teaching, and held back on allocations of foreign exchange for much needed fertilizer largely out of dislike for Food Minister Chidambaram Subramaniam.

Last month eleven members of Parliament introduced a resolution charging that T.T.K. had used his office to advance the business interests of his sons. Krishnamachari appealed to Shastri to personally exonerate him of the accusation. Shastri stalled, suggesting that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ought to examine the matter. Enraged, the Finance Minister walked in for a showdown. "You are not indispensable," said Shastri. Replied Krishnamachari: "I should have quit when Nehru died."

T.T.K. leaves behind an unfinished budget for fiscal 1967 and a legacy of bitterness among both foreign and domestic businessmen. If few of them understood the nightmarish problems that any Indian Finance Minister has to cope with, most still held high hopes for their fortunes under the new man, Calcutta Lawyer Sachindra Chaudhuri, who was expected to take a far more flexible approach. Indeed, on news of a change in the post, shares on the Indian stock exchanges staged a brisk rally.

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