Harmonizing the Tensions

Indira Gandhi, who in her seven months as India's Prime Minister has looked with clear eyes toward the West, has been under increasing criticism at home for supposedly deserting her father's socialist, nonaligned principles. Thus it was an ideal time to emphasize the family principles by revisiting some of Jawaharlal Nehru's old haunts.

First stop last week was Cairo, where she spent two days reviewing the world's horizons with Jawaharlal's old neutralist crony Gamal Abdel Nasser. Next she will fly to the Adriatic isle of Brioni and two days of talks with another old non-aligned family friend, Marshal Tito. This week a special Aeroflot airliner will whisk her from Brioni to Moscow.

Before emplaning in New Delhi, Indira gave her countrymen a sample of what she would be saying to her hosts. Speaking on All India Radio, she called for the Geneva Conference co-chair men, Britain and Russia, to reconvene the conference immediately for a negotiated settlement of the Viet Nam war and pledged that India, as chairman of the conference's International Control Commission, would aid in policing a Viet Nam ceasefire. She also extolled India's traditional policy of joining neither Eastern nor Western blocs. "Nonalignment," she said, "can harmonize the tensions which grow out of changing alignments. Its practice is consistent with friendship for all." All that would be familiar and reassuring to her father's old buddies, and no doubt very good politics for India's lady.

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