Indira's Return

An attempt to restore a dynasty

For the villagers of Rae Bareli in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the vigorous woman in the beige sari electioneering under a roadside arbor was a haunting apparition from India's political past. Raising an orange-colored bullhorn, she repeated her blunt and simple slogan: "Banish poverty!" Seizing upon the issue of most urgent concern to her peasant audience--the high price of onions --she promised not only to fight inflation but to bring the bounty of the welfare state closer to home. "I don't know whether you've had any government aid here," she shouted grandly, "but if you vote me in, you'll get it!" Appealing to more sophisticated urban voters, she promised to restore stability to a government that has been repeatedly shaken by bitter internecine quarrels.

The all too familiar, yet unlikely, candidate was Indira Gandhi, personally carrying her pitch to an estimated 90 million voters in a 25,000-mile nationwide campaign. She was defiantly attempting nothing less than the possible restoration of the dynastic House of Nehru to Indian politics, a move that not many would have predicted only a few months earlier. Just 21/2 years ago, the 62-year-old daughter of India's revered first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was roundly turned out as Prime Minister, and even as an M.P., when an angry electorate swept her faction of the Congress Party from office in disgrace in the 1977 elections.

Only a year ago, Gandhi had spent a week in jail for contempt of parliament; she is still facing four court cases involving abuses of power during the 21-month emergency dictatorship she established in 1975. In this week's national election, however, she was likely to regain her parliamentary seat; her son, Sanjay, out of prison on appeal, was also expected to be elected to parliament.

The election that made Gandhi's re-emergence possible has come about as the result of a tangled political crisis that began last summer, when India's ruling Janata Party split in two. The leader of the breakaway Lok Dal faction, Charan Singh, was named Prime Minister of a shaky coalition government. But when Gandhi withdrew her party's support, parliament had to be dissolved. With Singh remaining in office temporarily as caretaker Prime Minister, a new general election was called 21/2 years ahead of schedule.

On the national level, Gandhi's principal competitor for power is Jagjivan Ram, 71, the leader of the Janata Party, which the polls indicate is running a close second to Gandhi's Congress Party.

On the local level, Gandhi's chances of winning back her old seat in the Rae Bareli district have been enhanced by a split in the opposition reflecting the disarray that also prevails in India's other major political parties. Facing Gandhi are a former Maharani, Vijaya Reje Scindia, on the Janata ticket, and Mahipal Singh Shastri, representing Lok Dal. But in case of a slip-up in Rae Bareli, Gandhi has taken the precaution of running in a second constituency, in Andhra Pradesh, the only one of India's states that Gandhi's party now rules.

As the country's 361 million registered voters prepared to go to the polls on Jan. 3 and 6, pre-election pundits were betting that neither Gandhi's faction of the Congress Party nor Ram's shattered Janata Party would win a clear majority in parliament. Analysts estimated that out of the 528 parliamentary seats, the two parties could each win about 200 seats, while Lok Dal might capture about 60. In that case, Gandhi and Ram would have to scramble for new adherents among the smaller political parties to see which one might be able to form a coalition government. If Gandhi succeeds, she could once again be presiding in New Delhi early this year.

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