Indira's Time of Trouble

Not since India gained its independence from Britain in 1947 had it faced a constitutional crisis of such magnitude. Last week Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found guilty of campaign irregularities in the 1971 parliamentary elections that returned her to office for a second term. As a result, she was barred from her seat in Parliament and disqualified from holding elective office for six years. Her lawyers immediately announced that they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, and Justice Jag Mohan Lai Sinha issued a stay of 20 days pending the appeal. Even if it is overturned, Judge Sinha's decision is likely to have far-reaching consequences for Prime Minister Gandhi. As the Times of India put it in an editorial, "The immediate impact will be to detract from her moral authority, undermine the cohesion of the ruling party, stall policy decisions, and make the management of the country's affairs even more nerve-racking than it is."

The case grew out of Mrs. Gandhi's campaign four years ago for her parliamentary seat in Rae Bareli, her home district, in the poverty-stricken state of Uttar Pradesh, 300 miles southeast of New Delhi. She won a landslide victory --183,000 votes to 71,000 for her opponent, socialist Raj Narain. Barely a month after the election, Narain, 58, an old and bitter foe of Mrs. Gandhi and her late father, Jawaharlal Nehru, went to court and charged that Mrs. Gandhi and her staff, in violation of India's equivalent of the U.S.'s Hatch Act, had allowed government officials to campaign for her and had spent more than the allowed maximum.

The case has been in the courts ever since. When it finally came to trial, Mrs. Gandhi, in an unprecedented move, took the witness stand for 6% hours in her own defense. Her appearance turned into a sensation when the editor of a Hindi newspaper was caught entering the court with a loaded gun and arrested on suspicion of planning to assassinate her. Two days later, would-be assassins also attempted--unsuccessfully--to kill the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Extra Police. Justice Sinha exonerated Mrs. Gandhi of charges that she had used air force planes for campaign purposes, bribed voters with blankets, clothing and liquor, spent more than the $4,500 limit, and used the Congress Party's symbol (a cow and a calf) in an illicit religious appeal for votes. But he ruled that she had allowed Yashpal Kapoor, a key political aide, to campaign for her prior to quitting his government post. Justice Sinha, who is regarded as a staunchly non-political jurist, also found that the Uttar Pradesh state government had illegally assisted her by improving roads, erecting platforms and providing special crowd protection.

By most standards of political corruption--particularly in India, where bureaucratic malfeasance is rampant --the charges seemed trivial. Both hinge on technicalities. Mrs. Gandhi testified that Kapoor resigned on Jan. 14 and began working in her campaign on Feb. 1. The judge ruled that Kapoor's resignation was not valid until it was put in writing on Jan. 25 and that in fact he helped organize her campaign as early as Jan. 7. As for the second charge, Mrs. Gandhi testified that the state's deployment of extra police was necessary for security reasons. The other arrangements, she added last week, were organized by the opposition government in Uttar Pradesh at the time and not by her office or the central government.

Despite the verdict, Mrs. Gandhi vowed that she would not resign the post she has held since 1966. Speaking to a crowd of 2,000 well-wishers in New Delhi, she said: "We have faced challenges in the past, and we will continue even now to face them with courage."

Leaders of the Congress Party quickly started a campaign to organize public support for Mrs. Gandhi. But opposition parties announced that they would no longer recognize her as head of the nation's government. S.K. Patil, a member of the Congress Party faction that broke with her in 1969 and formed a separate party, said: "At long last Mrs. Gandhi has met her Watergate."

State Elections. The crisis was compounded by the results of the Gujarat state election, which became known the day after Judge Sinha's decision. The Congress Party, which had won 140 of the 168 seats in the last election, dropped to a mere 75 in the 182-seat state legislature. Its principal rival, a five-party coalition known as the Janata (People's) Front won 87. That left the coalition short of a majority, however, and prospects were for a shaky, short-lived government that might well collapse before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Narain, a maverick, quick-tempered member of the upper house who has been in jail for some protest or other at least once a year since 1947, and who has frequently had to be bodily carried out of legislative sessions for refusing to obey the speaker's rules of order, gloated over the turmoil he had wrought. "The court has done its duty," he said. "Now there must be demonstrations all over the country forcing the Prime Minister to resign."

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