INDIA: A Rise of Voices

Throughout India last week there was an increasingly articulate protest against the leadership—or lack of it—of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

A year ago, when Nehru talked of stepping down from office because he was getting "flat and stale" and querulous, his ruling Congress Party begged him to remain at the helm. Congressmen cried: "Panditji, you are leaving us orphans!" and Nehru had consented to remain in office. Leaving this emotional scene, one Congressman, who had joined in the sycophantic clamor, said to another: "The farce is over. Let's go home and laugh."

Cowardly Alibi. But the occasion had left a bad taste all around. Since then, newspapers have taken to criticizing Nehru with a new bluntness; old opponents use stronger language. Seemingly oblivious, Nehru in January rammed through a series of resolutions to socialize Indian agriculture, calling for a limit on land ownership and the formation of cooperatives in India's 600,000 villages within three years (an impossible timetable that would require the founding of 500 cooperatives a day).

Many of the Congressmen who obediently voted for Nehru's resolutions insisted privately that they were against them. The Times of India labeled the plan a "distribution of poverty," and Frank Moraes, well-known editor of the Indian Express, called it "a cowardly alibi for collectivism." Critics raised the specter of farm collectives and feared India was headed toward the "communes" of Red China. Nehru at first railed at these "phantom fears," then grew more bitter, finally snapped: "Well, if it comes to Communism, let it."

Last week Nehru lost more glamour by flying down to the Red-run state of Kerala, staying three days, and flying back to New Delhi without accomplishing much. Kerala's Red government has been battling a united front of local Socialist, Moslem and Congress parties who are seeking to bring it down with the "direct action" of Gandhi-style nonviolent demonstrations (TIME, June 29). The Reds have fought back by arresting 15,000 people, jamming 4,180 into jails.

Nehru's visit left the Communists still in the saddle and their opponents, including his own Congress Party, high and dry. As has happened so often in the past, from Korea to Hungary, from the councils of the United Nations to his temporizing about Tibet, Nehru's indecisive efforts at compromise and peacemaking left his supporters disappointed and dissatisfied.