Empress in Distress

Mrs. Gandhi foils the government--for the moment

"When you strike at a king," said Ralph Waldo Emerson, "you must kill him." Last week the government of Prime Minister Morarji Desai struck at the woman who once was idolized and later feared as the virtual empress of India --and it missed. Indira Gandhi's successors in power, many of whom had languished in prison during her 21-month state of emergency, had been closing a net of police investigations around her for weeks. When she was finally arrested and taken to court, Mrs. Gandhi slipped out of the net with ease--proving once more that she is the tactical genius of Indian politics.

Following her humiliating defeat at the polls last March, Mrs. Gandhi announced her retirement from public life. But slowly, shrewdly, she began to venture forth again--meditating with Vinoba Bhave, the venerable ascetic who claims to be Mahatma Gandhi's spiritual heir, and addressing rallies of her Congress Party faithful in South India, Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, the government was investigating the business activities of her son Sanjay, and several of her former colleagues were arrested on corruption charges. Accusing the government of launching "witch hunts" against her, Mrs. Gandhi last month declared that she expected to be arrested within a week. Home Minister Charan Singh replied tartly that if she were arrested, it would be on solid criminal grounds.

In fact, full-scale investigations were already under way. Former Supreme Court Justice J.C. Shah was looking into constitutional abuses and other misdeeds during the emergency. One former minister after another publicly blamed Mrs. Gandhi or her family for tampering with the judiciary, political favoritism, punitive police raids and the like. Meanwhile, the police were probing charges that 104 Jeeps had been provided illegally by various Indian industrialists to help her party win re-election last March, and that she had pushed the award of a $17.4 million oil-drilling contract to a French company, even though the government had received a $4 million bid from an American firm that had already worked on the same project. The government decided to move against Mrs. Gandhi immediately--but in such sloppy fashion that the political drama quickly turned to farce.

At 5 p.m. last Monday, senior police officials appeared at Mrs. Gandhi's residence at 12 Willingdon Crescent in New Delhi. She kept them waiting an hour while her supporters gathered outside. "I won't budge unless I am handcuffed," she told police, who offered to release her on bail if she would give a personal commitment to appear in court. Mrs. Gandhi would have none of that. Would she leave quietly by a side door to avoid the crowd? "I'm going out the front door of my house!" cried Jawaharlal Nehru's imperious daughter, and so she did. But only after declaiming to newsmen that she was being arrested on "political grounds."

The police had hoped to take their distinguished prisoner quietly to a government tourist house in the nearby state of Haryana. Mrs. Gandhi, who has often described herself as an Indian Joan of Arc, blocked their plans with dismaying ease. When the procession stopped at a railroad crossing, her lawyer pointed out to the police that she could not be taken outside the federal territory of Delhi without a special order. Mrs. Gandhi perched herself on a fence and vowed, "I'm sitting here until they show me the court order." Eventually, the police gave up and took her to the officers' quarters of a police camp in Delhi for the night.

Appearing in court next morning, Mrs. Gandhi once more tormented her tormentors. Under Indian law, the court appearance is a mere formality. As police were using tear gas to break up demonstrations outside the courtroom, Mrs. Gandhi defiantly told the presiding magistrate that she would not ask for bail and preferred to remain in jail. Government lawyers hedged when the magistrate asked them, again and again: "What do you want? What exactly is your prayer?" The government was afraid to take the risk of jailing her, and after 80 minutes of courtroom waffling, the judge released her.

Less than 24 hours later, Mrs. Gandhi flew to Gujarat, Desai's home state north of Bombay, and told a crowd of thousands that she would continue to "speak for the people" and "give them a lead." But Indira's triumph may yet prove a fleeting one. The magistrate's ruling will almost certainly be overturned by the High Court, and there are said to be other cases pending. At week's end the Home Minister was confiding that he fully expected to arrest Mrs. Gandhi again. But next time he had better strike hard at the erstwhile empress, or else the myth of her invincibility will continue to grow.

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