The Emergency: A Needed Shock

It is nearly four months since Prime Minister Indira Gandhi proclaimed a state of emergency in India and assumed authoritarian powers. Today critics of her policies--including some in Washington --are taking a cautious second look. This month a joint Indo-U.S. commission, designed to promote better relations, convened in Washington after a long delay. At the time, President Ford emphasized that Washington had great interest in the "strength, progress and economic viability of India." He said he was still anxious to visit India. TIME New Delhi Bureau Chief William Smith recently toured the country and cabled this assessment of Indian democracy under the emergency:

Basking in a bright October sun that followed a prolonged but beneficent monsoon, hundreds of thousands of Indians gathered last week to celebrate Dussehra, the ancient Hindu festival that symbolizes the victory of good over evil. As always, the climax of the ritual was the burning of effigies of the demon-king Ravana and his kinsmen Meghnad and Kumbhakarna. But this year's ceremonies were a bit different than usual. The fireworks display at Delhi's parade ground saluted Prime Minister Gandhi's 20-point social and economic program, which was inaugurated after the emergency was declared last June 26. At Dussehra ceremonies elsewhere in the country, effigies of black marketeers, hoarders and smugglers were burned along with Ravana and his ilk.

Mrs. Gandhi herself spent a five-day working holiday in Kashmir, talking politics with Sheik Abdullah, chief minister of the state, and visiting Indian troops in the border areas opposite China and Pakistan. Government officials, who had been stung by previous criticism from Washington, were clearly pleased by Foreign Minister Y.B. Chavan's talks with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Ford's remark. "We will welcome him here," said Mrs. Gandhi, "and he can see for himself."

Despite New Delhi's undeniable lurch toward totalitarian rule and its suspension of certain civil liberties, India remains, strictly speaking, a democracy. Mrs. Gandhi's harsh effort to suppress political opposition shocked observers outside India, but she did act within the bounds of India's rather pliable constitution. Even though some 30 opposition members are in jail or under house arrest, Parliament continues to function. Moreover, an unfettered Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments on Mrs. Gandhi's conviction in June for illegal campaign practices, as well as on a constitutional amendment abrogating the charges of which she was convicted. It is expected to rule in a week or two--and may yet have the last word on the case.

On the other hand, political debate in India has been effectively silenced. Newspapers have become dull and predictable, and people seem reticent about discussing controversial matters in public. From the beginning of the emergency, much of the government's anger has been directed at the press. The other day, in discussing the BBC (which has withdrawn its correspondent from India), Mrs. Gandhi told an interviewer, "They seem to think that anything is fair if it's anti-Indian." Both the domestic and foreign press are still subject to stringent controls. Three weeks ago, the government abruptly expelled Jacques Leslie of the Los Angeles Times, for allegedly violating the censorship guidelines, thereby making him the sixth Western correspondent to be ousted since June. Last week authorities cut the telex and telephone wires of Reuters and the Australian Broadcasting Corp., for reporting that political prisoners at Delhi's Tihar jail had rioted and staged a hunger strike.

Antiquated Dowry. Most observers agree that these matters are of no great interest to the majority of India's 600 million people, who are more concerned about the fact that the government has completely halted inflation (down from 31% in September 1974) and that India's three-year-old drought has ended (experts now project a bumper grain crop this fall). Indians will long debate whether Mrs. Gandhi was justified in proclaiming the emergency, but the Prime Minister has won widespread support for seizing a rare opportunity to ram through a score of social reforms.

Day after day, ambitious new programs--or reupholstered old ones --have been announced. They include plans to set up a chain of rural banks, assure equal pay for women and end the antiquated custom of the dowry, which has become an intolerable burden for many families with daughters. There is now even a twelve-point program that may lead to nationwide prohibition--at some cost to the state governments, which gain an estimated $500 million a year in liquor taxes.

These days India is engrossed in a frenzied campaign to encourage discipline, punctuality, cleanliness, courtesy. Placards appear everywhere, some of whose messages of inspiration are attributed to Mrs. Gandhi but most not. On a street corner in New Delhi: ECONOMIC OFFENSES BRING STERN PUNISHMENT. Another, quoting Mohandas Gandhi: A BORN DEMOCRAT IS A BORN DISCIPLINARIAN.

The campaign for discipline may be having some impact on the country. In Bombay, for instance, streets are no longer littered with debris, telephone repairs are made promptly, and state ministers are arriving at their offices at the hitherto unheard-of hour of 9:30 in the morning. Police claim crime is down 10%, largely because they no longer have to spend so much of their energies controlling political demonstrations. One veteran foreign observer of Indian affairs believes Mrs. Gandhi "administered to the country a massive punch in the jaw, which it probably needed." He adds that if the government can bring the emergency to an end within six months, "the retrospective view will be that it has benefited the country and given a badly needed shock to a society whose values were crumbling."

What happens next? One view is that having proved her leadership with the emergency and having reaped the political benefits of a bumper grain harvest, Mrs. Gandhi will be in a strong position next spring to end the emergency and hold elections. Another view holds that since she already has a two-thirds majority in Parliament, there would be no need for her to risk a campaign and all its attendant criticism from opposition leaders and an unshackled press. There are signs of a drift toward a cult of personality. The back of one bus bears the florid declaration COURAGE AND CLARITY OF VISION, THY NAME IS INDIRA GANDHI. The government-run television has also stepped up its already lavish coverage of the Prime Minister and her Cabinet.

Nobody really professes to know what the Prime Minister will do. As one observer put it, "Her father relied on his Cabinet, so you could talk to some of his Ministers and get an idea of what he might decide to do." Not so with Jawaharlal Nehru's independent daughter. "She listens to a lot of people," he said, "and then acts on her own." Last week Mrs. Gandhi was asked by reporters about ending the emergency. "When the time comes," she answered loftily, "you will know."

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