A Feeling of Drift

Not even his mother would have readily recognized India's Home Minister Gulzarilal Nanda. Sitting in a small unmarked car parked at the edge of New Delhi's grain market, Nanda was wearing dark glasses, a long coat buttoned to his chin, and a turban whose tail covered his lower face. Thus disguised, he warily watched hundreds of Communist-led marchers demonstrating against India's food prices, which have risen 22% in the last 18 months --almost as much as the price rise over the previous ten years.

Nanda's careful disguise was hardly necessary to assure his safety. The demonstrators were under orders of the pro-Russian wing of India's divided Communist Party, which for the present is as dedicated to nonviolence as the pro-Peking wing is committed to violence. The crowds were orderly, but by organizing token attempts to break through police cordons, the Reds hoped to get 100,000 people arrested in five days and jam the jails. The police contented themselves with arresting 11,000 demonstrators, including the top pro-Russian leader, S. A. Dange, and most were sentenced to only a week in prison.

Downhill Course. Yet the food crisis will certainly deepen, since the dangerous preharvest months of September and October still lie ahead. India cannot raise grain as fast as babies--an estimated 10 million a year. Peasants lack both incentives and skill in modern agricultural methods. In the cities, police raids on shops and warehouses to seize hoarded supplies have crippled trade, and government attempts to regulate distribution by making up "food zones" have only resulted in further disrupting the supply. Panic buying creates false scarcities, and Indian officials bitterly admit that, after massive government investment in agriculture, the country still must rely on the U.S. for some three million tons of crucially needed wheat this year.

India generally is a far cry from the heady days of 1962 when, to repel the Red Chinese attack in the Himalayas, the nation seemed united and resolute. Indians swarmed to enlist, pledged their hoarded gold to the government, and willingly accepted a hike of income taxes by as much as 450% . Since then the course has been downhill. Nehru's illness and death were followed by the accession of tiny, introspective Lai Bahadur Shastri as Prime Minister. Almost immediately, Shastri himself suffered a heart attack; and although he seems recovered, he has stayed close to Delhi, making no attempts to travel and show himself to the Indian masses, who will not give their loyalty to a remote and unknown figure.

Raid the Stars. Most serious of all is the widespread feeling of drift, the conviction of Indians of all classes that there is no firm hand guiding the state.

When not inspecting grain markets Home Minister Nanda is busy with his loudly heralded campaign against corruption. Nanda thought he had Shastri's approval, but at a recent meeting of Congress party leaders, he was dismayed to find himself opposed both by Shastri and Atulya Ghosh, boss of Eastern India. The government made one attempt to show itself vigilant, but Nanda could not take credit for the move, since it was ordered by the Finance Ministry. Besides, it was scarcely what the country had been waiting for: a spectacular raid on tax-dodging movie stars.

For years, it has been an open secret that Indian stars declare only a fraction of their true salaries, and are paid the rest in "black money." In swift raids in Bombay, the revenuers picked up $777,000. Biggest haul came from the home of Actress Mala Sinha, where $250,000 was found in a safe in the ceiling of her ornate bathroom and another $100,000 in a bag that Mala's mother had in her hand as she tiptoed out the back door. A bottle of liquor was found, which is also a crime under Bombay's prohibition laws. But the cops thought they had done enough to poor Mala and chivalrously arrested her father for illegal possession of the liquor.

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