Symbol in Chains

Handcuffs and chains fettered the tall, bespectacled prisoner as he was led into the packed New Delhi courtroom. He was George Fernandes, 46, chairman of the Socialist Party of India and former president of the All-India Rail-waymen's Federation, and he was now facing India's first prosecution for conspiracy against the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Behind Fernandes came 21 co-defendants--industrialists, journalists, politicians and others--also handcuffed and chained. With characteristic fervor, Fernandes rattled his shackles and declared that he was guilty of no crime. "We and the chains we bear before you today," he told Magistrate Mohammed Shamim, "are symbolic of the entire nation."

The 22 prisoners, in court last week for their first pretrial hearing, have all been accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation of taking part in a "deeprooted criminal conspiracy" to "overawe the central government." Already the prosecution has submitted a list of 575 witnesses it plans to call--suggesting that the trial is being staged as a courtroom spectacular that could last for months. Presumably the government is hoping to demonstrate, through testimony, that the threat of subversion justified Mrs. Gandhi 16 months ago in her drastic curtailment of civil rights.

Fernandes, who once studied to be a Roman Catholic priest, is a quixotic but skillful labor organizer. He first acquired a national reputation in 1967, when he unexpectedly defeated a strongman of the ever ruling Congress Party, S.K. Patil, for the parliamentary seat for South

Bombay. Fernandes soon found the life of an M.P. boring and went back to militant unionism. In May 1974, he masterminded a crippling national railway strike that the government succeeded in breaking only after three weeks of turmoil and thousands of arrests.

The following year, on the very day Mrs. Gandhi declared a state of emergency and detained thousands of her opponents without trial, Fernandes went underground. For almost a year, until his arrest in Calcutta last June, he traveled the country disguised as a Sikh, with a flowing beard and turban. Gradually, he organized a resistance movement, published a clandestine mimeographed newsletter and--according to the prosecution--staged a number of bombings. If found guilty, he will face a sentence of life imprisonment.

Firm Control. The trial is certain to attract wide attention--especially since the Indian government lifted all censorship restrictions on foreign correspondents a fortnight ago. No similar relaxation in the government's firm control over the domestic press has taken place. On the contrary, the right of dissent has virtually disappeared.

Nor will it soon reappear. Late this month Parliament will meet in special session to consider an elaborate revision of the Indian constitution. The effect of the proposed amendment bill--certain to be passed because of the ruling Congress Party's huge majorities in Parliament and the state legislatures--will be to enhance the already vast powers of the executive and to reduce those of the judiciary. The Supreme Court will lose its right to question legislation on any but procedural grounds.

After passage of the bill, Mrs. Gandhi may lift the state of emergency and may hold the postponed elections. By that time, after all, many of the extraordinary powers of the emergency administration will have become ordinary, a permanent part of India's political life.

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