Warm Welcome

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Congress Party had fared badly in the South Calcutta by-election last month, and Calcutta's Communist hoodlums had been increasingly cocky ever since. Last week, Nehru flew into Calcutta to see for himself how dangerous the city's Communists really were.

At Dum Dum airport, Nehru refused a closed car, chose an open model in which, standing erect all the way, he rode through eight miles of churning crowds. In the Shambazaar district, a group of youths shouted, "Traitor Nehru," and threw shoes at him, the ultimate Indian insult.

That night, Nehru went to Calcutta's vast central park, the Maidan, to address a crowd of 600,000 (a rival meeting called by leftists boycotting Nehru drew only 1,000). As he ascended the speakers' platform, a loud explosion sounded on the outskirts of the crowd. A bomb, meant for Nehru, had exploded along the route he had just taken, killing one policeman, wounding four other persons.

Incensed, Nehru spent two hours fiercely berating Calcuttans for their increasing reputation for violence. Murmured one Indian to an American: "Calcutta is becoming the Chicago of India." In the midst of the speech, two youths tried to tear down the national flag. The crowd, responding to Nehru's lecture, turned on the youths, beat them severely before police intervened. As the meeting adjourned, a man who had been standing at a gate through which Nehru was scheduled to pass drew his revolver too soon, fired three wild shots at police.

Flushed by his narrow escapes and tumultuous ovations, Nehru threw a farewell bouquet to Calcuttans: "I should like to express my deep gratitude . . . not only for my warm welcome . . . but for the perfect order that prevailed . . . Calcutta is ... a peaceful city of busy folk carrying on their professions and avocations, while just a few anti-social elements cause trouble."

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