Five-Year Fuse

Jawaharlal Nehru thought he knew where India's dragon lay, and went off to slay him. "Communalism," he declared, "is India's greatest enemy. In the north, this communal poison has created hatred between Hindus and Sikhs. In the south, it has created antagonism between Brahmins and non-Brahmins . . . Unless we wipe out these communal parties, India will go to pieces."

By "communalism" he meant India's ancient and narrow religious practices. The princes, priests and fanatics, with the ancient magic of caste and superstition, obscured Nehru's dream of a modern, self-sufficient India. Last week, with three-fourths of the returns counted in the Indian republic's first general election, Prime Minister Nehru and his Congress Party recorded a smashing victory over the dragon. The far-right political organizations had collected only one-thirtieth of the total votes cast, won only ten of the 497 seats in New Delhi's House of the People.

Fighting the Right. Nehru personally trounced Prabhudatt Brachmachari, a Hindu holy man vowed to silence, who had challenged the Prime Minister in his home district (TIME, Jan. 28). Nehru's Congress Party was assured of at least 43% of the total vote. It won some 375 seats in the House of the People and majorities or near-majorities in at least 23 of 25 state legislatures.

The massive election was a triumph for the democratic process: of 173 million adults eligible to vote (80% of them illiterate), 100 million cast their ballots. Old customs held down the vote in some sections. Around Rajasthan, 3,000,000 women failed to get on the electoral rolls because they would not break with custom and declare their names.

The election was a great personal triumph for vibrant Prime Minister Nehru. In 18,056 miles of campaigning and 720 speeches, he baldly confronted the holy men and nobles in their home grounds, and strove mightily to break their hold on the minds of India's teeming millions. He also worked hard to keep his dream for India unsullied by political trafficking. Confronted with dissatisfaction over the squabbling and nepotism within his own sprawling Congress Party and with growing discontent over the worst agricultural conditions in a century, Nehru might have made things easier for himself by a step obvious to any politician. To court transitory popularity, he could have curtailed his long-range hydroelectric and agricultural projects, which cannot be expected to bring results for five or six years, and poured out millions to buy food and cloth. Nehru raised taxes, stuck to his plans, and went into the country to sell his dream.

Trouble on the Left. His victory was marred by a bright red scar. Battling valiantly against the right, he turned his back on the left--a characteristic failing. "I agree with the aims of the Communist Party," he kept repeating, "but I differ with Communists in the methods of achieving them . . . through murder, loot and arson." This soft indictment, the iteration that "in Communism there are certain good things," was no way to lick them. Now the Communists are emerging from the election as India's No. 2 party. There were signs last week that Nehru himself had begun to see his mistake.

Though they collected but 6% of the total vote, the Communists spotted their candidates so well that they got about 30 of their top strategists and orators elected to the House of the People, bunched their winners in a few important state assemblies. More important, they have collected a formidable following among India's educators, artists and intellectuals, and have gained the support of influential groups willing and able to finance them.

The election gave Nehru another five years to try to solve India's eternal problems of poverty, sickness and famine. The Communists, with a beachhead in Parliament and the inimitable Communist talent for waxing fat on misery, will be standing by and hoping for failure. "This," observed a U.S. official in India, "is a problem with a five-year time fuse on it."

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