A Falling Out From Hares to Hounds

INDIA A Falling Out from Hares to Hounds

It's splitsville for Indira and the comrades. India's Prime Minister and the Moscow-leaning Communist Party of India (C.P.I.) were once the best of friends. In 1969, the C.P.I, helped keep Indira Gandhi in power after she drove the old guard out of the ruling Congress Party, splitting the party in the process. It supported her again when she declared a state of emergency in June 1975 and suspended many civil liberties. As a result, the C.P.I, was the only opposition party without a single member arrested.

Now that the temporary emergency is taking on a distinctly permanent look, the C.P.I, has had some second thoughts. Its leaders are concerned about Mrs. Gandhi's seemingly rightist economic policies--her concessions to private industry, abolition of compulsory bonus payments for workers and curbs on union activity. The C.P.I, is also uneasy about the growing influence of Mrs. Gandhi's ambitious son, Sanjay, 30--he is currently using the youth wing of the party as a power base--whose politics seem pragmatic and even downright antiCommunist. In a lightly veiled reference to Sanjay's following, the C.P.I, attacked what it called a "reactionary caucus" within the Congress. The C.P.I. backed Mrs. Gandhi's 20-point emergency program for social and economic reform, but pointedly withheld support from Sanjay's five-point youth program, which calls for increased family planning, more tree planting, better sanitation, higher literacy and the abolition of dowries.

Mrs. Gandhi angrily struck back at her erstwhile Communist friends. In a speech delivered before a cheering audience of senior Congress Party leaders in New Delhi, she denounced the C.P.I, and called its assault on Sanjay an indirect attack on her ("He is small fry"). The Communists, she declared, "say they support me, but there can be no greater insult than to say that I could be influenced by reactionaries or by anyone else." Mrs. Gandhi's "exposure" of the Communists evoked a chorus of support from other Congress members, who accused the Communists of "betrayal of the people." In Patna, the capital of Bihar, Youth Congress members paraded the streets carrying placards: COMMUNIST PARTY MURDABAD, SANJAY GANDHI ZINDABAD (Death to the Communist Party, long live Sanjay Gandhi).

Ambiguous Policy. The counterattack left 'the C.P.I, bewildered, demoralized and divided. After first retreating into silence, some party leaders issued a weak statement saying that the party did not oppose Sanjay's program but feared that it might push Mrs. Gandhi's 20-point program into the background. Other C.P.I, bigwigs urged their party to join the other opposition parties and end its ambiguous policy of "running with the hares and hunting with the hounds." But a hastily organized Communist campaign to enlist popular support by protesting rising prices never got off the ground, and some 100 Communist organizers were arrested for agitating.

Prime Minister Gandhi's attack on the Communists has done no harm to New Delhi's relations with Moscow. The Soviets are apparently willing to sacrifice the C.P.I, rather than their special relationship with India. They have already announced that they would supply 5.5 million tons of crude oil to New Delhi over the next four years, thereby cushioning India against OPEC price hikes during that period. The Russians also agreed to supply 200 tons of deuterium oxide (heavy water) for India's nuclear program, and hinted that a two-year squabble over the ruble-rupee exchange rate would soon be settled to India's satisfaction.

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