"A Straight Fight"

"If we find it comfortable to sit on the fence," Prime Minister Nehru said recently, "then we shall continue to sit on the fence. It is not the business ... of certain other countries ... to order us about." When it comes to fighting Communism inside his native India, Nehru seldom sits on the fence. He has jailed Communists without trial; he has raided their headquarters without search warrants; he calls them "the forces of chaos." Last week Nehru took after the Communists in South India's Travancore-Cochin (pop. 9,265,000), where they were given a 50-50 chance to win this month's State Assembly elections. The outcome may well show whether the Communists can expect to undermine free India via the ballot box.

"Look at Their flag!" Sporting jasmine garlands and his inevitable red rosebud, Nehru stumped Travancore for six days on foot, by Cadillac and in motor launches, making 25 speeches a day. He met fishermen in thatched huts, cardamom pickers in the spice groves, farmers in their rice fields. Altogether he drew 3,000,000 to his scheduled Congess Party meetings. Everywhere he kept up a bitter tirade against India's Communists. "Look at their flag!" he cried. "They have copied the Russian flag. Very extraordinary . . . My mind fails to grasp why that flag should be imported into India, and used as a party symbol . . . This is a type of mental slavery."

On the hustings, Nehru seemed far from the blinkers and the abstruse neutralism of New Delhi: he was the magnetic Panditji again, back among the people he had helped Gandhi lead to independence. He threw garlands, and jumped from his car to hug the children. He shinnied up a Welcome arch so that one excited crowd could see him. He leaped a wire barricade to rescue a child in danger of being trampled. He joshed Communists who had called him "potbellied." That, said Panditji., was "vulgar." His impact was such that the Communists soon called off their attacks for the duration of his visit, and joined in the celebrations. "Welcome Pandit Nehru," their red banners read, but "Down with the Congress Party."

"It's a Strange Animal." Nehru had no time to lose, for in all India, the Communists are strongest in Travancore. The state boasts a 54% literacy rate--the highest in Asia outside Japan; it sends 98.8% of its children to school. It is 32% Christian. It has more doctors, engineers and teachers per capita than any other state in India. But Travancore also has the highest "educated unemployment" rate in India, and wages are low. Thousands of primary-school teachers get only $6 a month; they lean towards Communism like many other frustrated intellectuals, and indoctrinate their pupils--and through them, the parents.

Just before the election, India's national Communist Party modified its tactics "to suit the circumstances of Gandhian India," just as Mao Tse-tung "adopted Marxism to the China of Confucius." The party's new commandments: 1) reject violence, pay lip service to Gandhian ideals, and concentrate on land reform; 2) court the middle class and the Socialists. The Communists scored a notable victory when Travancore's democratic Socialists agreed to join them for this election, in the classic, naive belief "that we shall call the tune." Last week Nehru re served his heaviest fire for this united front. "It is a strange animal," said he, darkly. "I do not know what zoological name can be given it ... but there are vultures in this world who want to feed on us if we are weak and unaware."

At week's end Nehru headed back to New Delhi and international neutralism.

He left behind him a new, warm memory of Panditji, the old Freedom Firster of the Gandhi days, a much better electoral prospect, and a crop of reports that he was contemplating unneutral action in the unlikely event that the Communists won. "It is a straight fight," one of his Cabinet ministers said, "and if the Communists win, we cannot allow them to rule."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.