Janata's "Bad Smell"

A government crisis leaves an opening for Indira

When 82-year-old Prime Minister Morarji Desai returned home from the U.S. last month, portly Minister of Health Raj Narain was solicitously waiting for him at the airport. As the leader stepped out into the 102DEG summer sizzle of New Delhi, Narain held out a scented handkerchief. Brushing the offer aside, Desai snapped: "You put perfume here, but you spread a bad smell about the party elsewhere." With that retort the Prime Minister triggered a crisis in his 16-month-old government that led to the resignation of two Cabinet ministers, fractured the fragile unity of the ruling Janata Party and--unwittingly--cleared the way for a possible political comeback by his predecessor, Indira Gandhi.

The immediate cause of Desai's ire was Narain's repeated demands for the resignation of Janata Party President Chandra Shekhar, who is Desai's personal protege. The Health Minister had accused Chandra Shekhar of political intrigue and undemocratic behavior. But as Desai fully realized, Narain's real target was not Chandra Shekhar but Desai himself. Rising to the challenge, the Prime Minister announced that Chandra Shekhar would remain in place and called upon top Janata leaders to rebuke the obstreperous Narain.

Hovering behind the scenes in the intraparty quarrel was the formidable figure of Home Minister Charan Singh, 75, whose ambition to succeed Desai as Prime Minister is surpassed only by his abiding hatred for Indira Gandhi. Though temporarily incapacitated by a heart attack, Singh warned that Desai's action against Narain had "sounded the death knell of the Janata Party." At the same time, he launched his own indirect offensive against Desai by calling for Mrs. Gandhi's immediate arrest. Scorning Desai's view that she had been punished enough by her defeat at the polls last year, Singh declared that the government's failure to arrest Mrs. Gandhi for abuse of power during her 21-month emergency rule had disillusioned all of India. "The people think that we in the government are a bunch of impotents who cannot govern the country," he charged from his rest-house near the ancient Hindu sun temple of Suraj Kund.

That was too much for Desai. He called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet and threatened to resign unless given a free hand. In the end, he was authorized to write letters to Narain and Singh, asking for their resignations. Both complied, followed by four junior ministers who quit in support of the two dissidents.

Singh vowed last week to continue the struggle against the Prime Minister within the Janata Party. Specifically, he proposed to expose "a conspiracy by multinational corporations and Big Business" against him because they oppose his lifelong espousal of small industry and agriculture. He threatened to test the strength of this appeal to the principles of Mahatma Gandhi by organizing a giant rally of small farmers to coincide with the reopening of Parliament next week. This might eventually lead Singh to form his own party, claiming it would be the "real Janata." Alarmed by the prospect of a showdown between Singh and Desai, mediators persuaded the former Home Minister to postpone the rally one week. Meanwhile Desai indicated he was waiting for an apology. Said one Janata leader, Piloo Mody: "So far we only have a ceasefire. It must be followed by negotiations for peace."

One beneficiary of this high-level government squabbling is Mrs. Gandhi, who so far has refrained from commenting on the Janata Party's disarray. Although the government could still put her on trial for abusing her powers of office during the emergency, her popularity is gradually returning. Her faction of the Congress Party recently scored a series of impressive by-election victories, mainly because of voters' disenchantment with the quarreling groups within Janata. A poll for the magazine India Today in June showed that the electorate in New Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras would vote her back into office. Warned a Janata member of Parliament, Ram Jethmalani, last week: "The criminals of yesterday must now be dreaming of becoming the rulers of tomorrow."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.