Mandate for Menonism

India's third and biggest election (14,744 candidates, 126 million voters) since independence last week brought slightly tarnished but undisputed victory for the ruling Congress Party, dismaying defeat for the nation's young, non-Communist opposition, and a heady new mandate for the neutralist policies of Prime Minister Nehru and the leftist views of Defense Minister Krishna Menon, which are coming to be known as Menonism. Main results:

>Nehru's Congress Party lost strength in all but two of the twelve state legislatures involved in the elections, and lost its majority in the states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. In the Lok Sabhal (lower house of Parliament), it lost at least 25 seats. But the final count will give Congress about 350 (out of a 494 total). With control of the only vigorous nationwide machine, Congress retains overwhelming political dominance.

>The Communists held their own in most areas, exploding the widespread assumption that they have been discredited by Red China's 14,000-square-mile land grab on India's northwest frontier.

>The ambitious, virulently anti-Moslem Jana Sangh Party made spotty gains in state legislatures, increased its parliamentary strength from six seats to 15.

>The Praja Socialists, supported mainly by the non-Communist intelligentsia, lost nearly half of their 197 state legislature seats and five of 16 seats in Parliament, and thus virtually ceased to function as an opposition party.

>The new Swatantra Party, which campaigned for free enterprise and was slandered as "fascist" by Nehru, won more state legislature seats (159) than any other party, but its strength was largely limited to three conservative states, Bihar, Gujerat and Rajasthan, where the beauteous Maharani of Jaipur defeated the Congress Party candidate in the election's biggest victory. The party was beaten in all major cities, stands third in Parliament with 18 seats. The Swatantra's plucky leader Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, called it a rout, but asked his supporters for the "patience and grit" to rally again.

The election's most far-reaching result was its resounding personal vindication of Nehru and Krishna Menon. Sure of his own Uttar Pradesh constituency (he romped home with a better than two-to-one lead over Socialist Leader Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia), Nehru throughout the campaign focused most of his efforts on Krishna Menon's fight for North Bombay. Nehru castigated Swatantra and right-wing Congress members, but only mildly criticized the Communist Party, which virtually took over Menon's campaign against J. B. Kripalani, the conservative coalition candidate who accused India's Defense Minister of twisting foreign policy to accommodate the Reds. But most voters showed little concern for Menon's Marxism. At the polls, North Bombay gave him a thumping 298,427-to-153,069 victory.

This outcome shattered the once accurate belief that vinegary Krishna Menon has no significant political power beyond the Prime Minister's stubborn support. Only a few months ago, a poll of Nehru's likely heirs placed Menon behind old Socialist Jayprakash Narayan and about even with hardheaded pro-Western Finance Minister Moraji Desai (whom Nehru pointedly ignored during the campaign). The Bombay victory put Menon far ahead, making him, after Nehru, the second most important figure in Indian politics. Hitherto a staunch majority in the party had turned a deaf ear to Nehru's and Menon's repeated demands for "a socialistic pattern of society," including cooperative agriculture and state ownership of all heavy industry. Now Nehru barely awaited the election returns to trumpet his plan to "purify" the Congress Party of his opponents.

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