A Powerful Vote for Freedom

You need not fear this government, as you have feared all those [past] months. We are your servants, not your masters.

With these words, Morarji Desai, 81, assured a jubilant throng in New Delhi that he would "drive fear out of society." Two months earlier he had been a prisoner without trial under the repressive state of emergency; last week, as he became the fourth Prime Minister of India, he promised to restore civil liberties, adhere to the principles of local development idealized by Mahatma Gandhi and maintain a scrupulously nonaligned foreign policy. A lifelong politician in the Gandhian mold, Desai is as eccentric as he is ascetic, and he leads a fractious coalition party that could fall apart under the slightest stress Nonetheless, whatever troubles ahead for India, his party's startling tory was a momentous event for democracy everywhere in the world.

Gone was Indira Gandhi, after eleven years as Prime Minister. Gone also was her abrasive and ambitious Sanjay 30, whom she had been grooming to carry on the tradition of the House Nehru. Gone was the stranglehold of the Indian National Congress, one of the century's great political movements and the ruling party in India for the past 30 years. Gone was the state of emergency of and the common wisdom that India was drifting ever closer to dictatorship.

Since Mrs. Gandhi imposed authoritarian rule so effortlessly in June 1975, many friends of India had sadly concluded that the nation's rural masses were preoccupied with matters of food and livelihood and cared little about such transplanted blessings of a democratic society as freedom of speech, assembly and the press, and due process under the law. In what may well have been the world's most important elections since World War II, the Indian masses demonstrated eloquently that this was not so.

In a stunning upset, Mrs. Gandhi lost her own carefully nurtured constituency in Uttar Pradesh by 55,000 votes to Raj Narain, a socialist buffoon whom she had trounced by 112,000 votes in 1971. "India is Indira, and Indira is India," Congress Party President D.K. Barooah used to boast. He will say it no more. Defeated in an adjoining constituency by 76,000 votes was Sanjay, in his first try for elective office. Of 542 seats in the new Lok Sabha (Lower House), Mrs. Gandhi's Congress Party won only 153 (v. 355 in the last Parliament), while Desai's Janata coalition won 270, completely routing Congress in its traditional heartland, the Hindi-speaking north. In a dramatic capitulation to the voters' verdict, Indira Gandhi drove to the home of Acting President B.D. Jatti at 4 a.m. one day last week after learning of her defeat, and asked him to lift the state of emergency that she had imposed 21 months earlier. A day later she resigned as Prime Minister.

Throughout India news of Mrs. Gandhi's defeat was received with astonishment and euphoria. "What is happening?" shouted Janata supporters outside a counting station in New Delhi. When told that their candidates were winning decisively, the spectators hugged the messengers of the good news. Said Om Prakash, 26, a cloth merchant: "The election result shows that dictatorship cannot acquire any roots in this country." Declared M.C. Sachdeva, 27 a government clerk. "To my generation, freedom began today, not in 1947." The Janata victory, added a fire brigade employe "has come mythical Lord Rama descending to earth to destroy the evil demon Indira."

Indira's major newspapers and magazines, most of which had been harassed into silence by censorship and government found their voices again. The Time of India called the election "a second liberation struggle" and added "Never before has the country been through such hell." Observed the Statesman, which had courageously criticized emergency excesses: "We Indians can hold our heads a little higher today." The Indian Express which had been brought to the verge of bankruptcy by a variety of governmental dirty tricks, said, "Indian democracy will never again be the same . . .No future government however large its majority in Parliament can afford to assume that it can drive a coach-and-four though the constitution and the laws."

In the United States, as in other Western countries, there was widespread satisfaction with the results. As one State Department official put it, "Indian democracy worked--and with a vengeance." Although careful not to gloat, a Carter Administration official said he found it "refreshing to see so many people opt for freedom in what amounts to a referendum against martial law." Perhaps the most enthusiastic response of all came from New York's Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former U.S. Ambassador to India (1973-75). He introduced a resolution in the Senate to "congratulate the free people of the Republic of India" for successfully holding "the largest democratic elections in history." With his customary Irish hyperbole, Moynihan told reporters, "Nothing that will happen in Washington this year will be as important to America as what happened in New Delhi in the past few days. Political democracy has reasserted its claim on the future of the world."

There was no joy in the Soviet Union, whose leaders had assiduously courted Mrs. Gandhi as an ally. Russian newspaper readers were not told of her loss for two days after the results were known. Then Izvestiya lamely explained that she had been beaten because of "mistakes and excesses" committed since the emergency was declared. Until last week, the Soviets had had nothing but praise for her tough emergency measures, and had attacked her opponents as "reactionaries" and "black marketeers." Now, said Izvestiya, Moscow was looking forward to friendly relations with the new government.

What had happened to turn India upside down? Nearly everyone agreed that the voters had held the government responsible for a number of hated events: the excesses of the sterilization program: the forced removal of tens of thousands from city slums; and the ever growing political present of Sanjay Ghandhi, who was seen as an evil influence on his mother and as the possible successor to her dynastic power.

Not even the Janata leaders predicted a landslide by their party, but many realized in the closing days of the campaign that Congress was in trouble. Opposition rallies were jammed, while Prime Minister's audiences were embarrassingly apathetic. Three times during a rally at Varanasi, the chairman called for a cheer for Indira, and three times the crowd shouted no. In Lucknow, women in the front of the audience started to leave ten minutes after Mrs. Gandhi began to speak. Tired of news broadcasts on the government-run All India Radio, which ignored the opposition's campaign and burbled endlessly about New Delhi's accomplishments, many Indians began to call it "All Indira Radio."

Almost to the end, Mrs. Gandhi believed her Congress Party machine would believed the vote, as it had done so often before. Sanjay was also convinced that his crowds--dutifully rounded up by party flunkies--were made up of genuine supporters. But when the balloting began, says a friend, the family confidence began to wane. "You could hear it in their conversation. They started wondering."

Opposition leaders were also wondering--about whether Mrs. Gandhi would abide by the election results if they went against her. They noted that paramilitary police, who had been moved to rural voting locations the week before, were suddenly regrouped. In an ominous speech in Uttar Pradesh on March 17, Mrs. Gandhi accused the opposition leaders of trying to create chaos, and the press of printing stories damaging to the national welfare. Some Janata leaders were sufficiently unnerved that they spent the next two nights at the homes of friends--just in case the police should come for them as they did in June 1975.

In New Delhi there were reports that when Mrs. Gandhi was warned of impending defeat, an inner circle of advisers tried to persuade her to annul the election, arrest the opposition leaders in the name of stability and reimpose the full force of the emergency. Whether or not the reports are true, Mrs. Gandhi--to her credit--accepted the voters' decision with quiet grace.

Spirit of Humility. By midafternoon on March 20, the last day of balloting, opposition leaders knew that the Prime Minister was in trouble in her constituency, Rae Bareli. Sealed off by sycophants, she did not learn the truth until 8 that night. She took the news calmly but became remote and withdrawn, stoically advising her ministers that if she had lost, she had lost. Before dawn the next morning she asked the Acting President to lift the state of emergency. Two hours later she summoned her ministers, many of whom had also been defeated, and told them she would resign.

In a broadcast to the nation, Indira Gandhi promised "constructive cooperation" with the new government and said that she accepted the verdict of the people "unreservedly and in a spirit of humility." As for Sanjay, he expressed regret that his activities might have "recoiled on my mother, whose life has been spent in selfless service." He was leaving politics, he said, to devote himself to "quiet, constructive work." Some of that constructive work may be a fight to stay out of prison. There are members of the new Parliament who want a public commission of inquiry to look into alleged irregularities involving Sanjay's automobile factory, which for several years has been developing an Indian "people's car."

The Janata wave swept clean across North India from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. In Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the sterilization campaign had been pursued most strenuously, Congress failed to win a single seat. Among the election's casualties were three ministers closely associated with the repressive measures of the emergency: Defense Minister Bansi Lal, a crony of Sanjay's; Law Minister H.R. Gokhale, architect of Mrs. Gandhi's constitutional amendments that curbed the powers of the courts and increased those of the Prime Minister; and Information Minister V.C. Shukla, who ran the government's campaign against the press.

The opposition triumph was particularly galling to Mrs. Gandhi because of the character of the principal victors; to her, they symbolized the kind of destructive "old politics" that she had hoped to eradicate from Indian life. Two of them, in fact, she had had arrested as potential dangers to the country. Morarji Desai, the new Prime Minister, had spent 19 months in detention and was released Jan. 18, when the elections were announced. Jayaprakash ("J.P.") Narayan, 74, the grand old man of Indian politics, had been arrested in June 1975, but was released five months later when he seemed to be dying of kidney disease.

More than anyone else, it was J.P. who brought down Indira's government: by his 1974 call for "total revolution" against corruption in the Bihar state government; by his June 1975 admonition to soldiers and policemen that they need not obey unlawful orders--a statement that Mrs. Gandhi used as an excuse for declaring the state of emergency; and by his plan for the formation of the Janata Party from four opposition groups. The third man who played a decisive role in India's change of government was, in Mrs. Gandhi's eyes, nothing less than a traitor to her cause. He is Jagjivan Ram, 68, leader of the country's 85 million Harijans (Untouchables). His unexpected resignation from Mrs. Gandhi's Cabinet and from the Congress Party in early February was the first clear sign that an upset might be in the making.

Great Assurance. Ram had hoped that he would swing the balance of power in a tight race; as it turned out, the Janata Party was so successful that it did not need the votes of his Congress for Democracy to form a government. Behind the scenes, as the winners pondered the selection of a Prime Minister, a number of Janata members--especially the younger and more radical ones--favored Ram over Desai. To avoid an open and divisive fight, the Janata leadership asked J.P. Narayan and a colleague, J.B. Kripalani, 88, to take a private poll of the membership.

At that point, precisely the kind of feuding that Indians had feared broke out. Charan Singh, the leader of a Janata faction, wrote Narayan that he would refuse to serve in the Cabinet under Ram. Singh had cooperated with Ram during the campaign; apparently he changed sides in an effort to block the rise of one of Ram's closest colleagues in Uttar Pradesh. That was a strong indication to Narayan that Desai had the votes to win, and so Desai's selection was announced to party members at an afternoon meeting. Ram was furious and boycotted the session. That evening, however, he appeared on a platform with Desai and nailed the new Prime Minister's accession as "a golden chapter in Indian history."

At the afternoon ceremony, Narayan had been too frail to talk, so it was Kripalani who announced the selection of Desai as cheers filled the hall. "Usually I don't feel very emotional," Desai told his party colleagues. "This time I am overwhelmed because of the burden I will bear." He then promised Narayan to "act according to your advice"--no easy commitment, since the unpredictable Narayan had said he would feel free to attack the government when necessary. Narayan, removing his glasses to wipe tears from his eyes, was overcome by Desai's promise. In what might prove to be a moving farewell to a 47-year political career, he told Desai, "I am younger than you by a few years, but will leave earlier than you. I am sick and may not live long. But I am happy I will go with this great assurance."

By almost any lights, Morarji Desai is an unlikely choice for a national leader. A native of Gujarat, he is a deeply religious and autocratic puritan who started his career as a civil servant under the British Raj. He rose to become the unbending and prohibitionist Chief Minister of what was then Bombay state. Partly because of his administrative skills--and partly because his zeal against liquor, prostitution and corruption had earned him a number of enemies--Jawaharlal Nehru later moved him to a Cabinet post in Delhi. Desai tried twice before to become Prime Minister, and served Indira Gandhi as both Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister until he broke with her in 1969; thereafter he led the Opposition Congress Party until the founding of the Janata Party two months ago.

Instrument of God. Desai rises each morning at 3 or 4 to pray, work at his spinning wheel and practice yoga until about 7. He eats only uncooked food--milk, fruit, cheese, carrot juice--and disdains even cereals. He also rejects alcohol, tobacco and modern medicine, and looks and acts at least 20 years younger than his 81 years. He swore off sex in his early 30s as a way of achieving self-control. In principle he favors national prohibition and regards self-control as the best means of achieving family planning--although, he quickly adds, he realizes that "governments are not run for freaks like me" (see interview).

"I pay more attention to means than ends," Desai says. "I would not give up truth to save the world." Once, when TIME Correspondent James Shepherd asked him why he always seemed so sure of his own infallibility, Desai replied calmly, "Because I'm an instrument of God." Friends say he has considerably mellowed with age and from his recent period in prison, where he passed the time peacefully spinning yarn, memorizing the Bhagavad-Gita, updating his autobiography and writing about natural medicine.

Desai's accession to power was uneventful and low-keyed. On Thursday, he drove to the old Viceroy's residence--now known as Rashtrapati Bhavan --where he was sworn in by Acting President Jatti. The oaths of office and official secrecy were read in Hindi, and in keeping with Desai's wish for austerity, there were no garlands. The new Prime Minister told reporters that he wanted to avoid being "vindictive or vengeful" toward Mrs. Gandhi or her fallen comrades. He announced that she was free to live in her government residence "as long as she wished" (which was only fair, since she had never taken away his official home even during the months he was in prison). In another extraordinary gesture by the victors, J.P. Narayan--despite his poor health--paid a courtesy call on Mrs. Gandhi. The two old adversaries chatted amiably for a half-hour.

While Mrs. Gandhi will not suffer under the new regime, many of her policies will. At his first press conference, the new Prime Minister announced that he would try to repeal her constitutional amendments restricting civil liberties and the powers of the courts. He also said his priority in domestic policy would be to "remove poverty" and end unemployment, a task he concedes might take a long time. Like other Janata leaders he is preoccupied with Mahatma Gandhi's ideal of local development, and will probably stress agriculture and village industry rather than big business and heavy industry.

Desai also changed India's foreign policy at a stroke. He made it clear that while remaining officially nonaligned, India will now be far less partial toward the Soviet Union than it has been in the past. The Indo-Soviet treaty of 1971, he said, would not be allowed to stand in the way of friendship "with any other state." And if it did, he added, the treaty "must be dissolved." He rejected outright any notion of a domestic political alliance with the Moscow-leaning Communist Party of India. "I don't want a Trojan horse," he said.

Any cooling of the friendship with Moscow will inevitably affect India's relations with China and, indirectly, with neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan, where March elections have led to unrest and widespread resentment. Charging that Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's party had won through electoral fraud, opposition leaders refused to take their seats in Parliament. Last week, as disorder spread, Bhutto ordered the arrest of top opposition members. There were fears that, if the trouble continued, he might have to impose martial law.

Functioning Anarchy. Can Desai, a venerable ascetic--some have called him a Hindu Calvinist--really hold India together? Will the country again become the functioning anarchy it was before the emergency? There are some reasons for worry. Although a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi's, Desai does not have the charisma associated with the Nehru heritage. He has a just reputation for being stubborn, unwilling to compromise. He heads a party that is united in its loathing for Mrs. Gandhi but divided on almost everything else. On labor matters, for example, the Socialist members of the Janata coalition are likely to press for labor bonuses and union participation in industry. Meanwhile, pro-business members of the former Jana Sangh Party will resist such moves. The Jana Sangh wing of Janata favors a strong central government, while most other members of the party want stronger local autonomy, especially in light of the authoritarianism of the previous regime. All Janata elements agree at least in supporting restoration of India's traditional liberties.

At week's end Desai named a 19-member Cabinet that included members of his party's various factions--and, most important, included Jagjivan Ram, whose Congress for Democracy remained a separate party in coalition with Janata. But Ram and two other politicians on Desai's list failed to show up, claiming they hadn't joined the Cabinet after all. "They will come," said Desai serenely. Maybe so, but the incident did not augur well for the future.

What would have happened had Mrs. Gandhi not called elections this year? Presumably, the emergency would have drifted on and on, further eroding the prospect that democracy would have returned to India. She believed that the "discipline" of the emergency had been beneficial to her country, but she also knew that India--which had been blessed with two consecutive record harvests--was unlikely to have a third such monsoon gift, and that prices were again rising. Thus, at a time of relative prosperity she called quick elections in the apparent hope of enhancing the legitimacy of her rule. She erred badly, though she will obviously be remembered for far more than her role in the emergency. Her aunt, Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit--Nehru's distinguished sister--opposed Mrs. Gandhi's imposition of the emergency. Nonetheless, she said last week, "Indira was the only man in the Cabinet. She'll be the only man in the Congress now, because she has taken her defeat valiantly and with great dignity."

One of the mysteries, however, is how Mrs. Gandhi, the compleat politician, so misjudged the national mood when she called the elections. She is known to have been worried last fall about the sterilization backlash and other bureaucratic tyrannies in North India. But in November Sanjay made a whirlwind tour of Uttar Pradesh and was greeted by the usual crowds--supplied, of course, by the local authorities. Similarly, when Sanjay and his elder brother Rajiv visited a community of resettled slumdwellers, they were given a tumultuous welcome--as ordered by party officials. Mrs. Gandhi, deprived of a free press and served by an ever narrowing circle of trusted advisers, apparently had come to believe her own propaganda. The election she was sure she would win became a referendum of her rule, and it backfired. In the end, an aroused electorate calmly rendered the only verdict it could on a ruler whose distance from her subjects, even for feudal India, had become intolerable.

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