No Longer Mr. Clean

The slight injury that Rajiv Gandhi suffered when he was attacked by a Sri Lankan honor guardsman last week is not the only insult the Indian Prime Minister has endured lately. Just two years ago Gandhi, 42, was hailed as the most promising of leaders, an enlightened Prime Minister whose reputation for probity won him the nickname "Mr. Clean." Today, battered by corruption scandals, local-election defeats, the defection of ministers and worsening communal violence, Gandhi, 42, is widely regarded as pathetically inept. As the newsmagazine India Today put it, "Rajiv Gandhi is not just in crisis. He is the crisis."

Even as Gandhi was signing the peace pact in Sri Lanka, his government came under unprecedented attack in the national Parliament. Members shouted insults at one another and almost came to blows. The opposition staged sit-downs in the well of the lower house, shoving Gandhi supporters, grabbing the notes of a Cabinet minister and creating such a shrill racket that sessions had to be repeatedly adjourned. The dissenting M.P.s, who are outnumbered 4 to 1 by Gandhi's Congress (I) Party, were trying to stop the creation of a parliamentary committee to investigate a government contract with the Bofors arms company of Sweden, which has admitted paying some $50 million into Swiss bank accounts for Indian officials. The opposition claims that any inquiry by a Gandhi-controlled committee would produce a whitewash.

Gandhi may be directly implicated, since he held the Defense Ministry portfolio at the time the Bofors contract was negotiated. The Prime Minister has also been accused of protecting friends suspected of illegal foreign- currency transactions. As his prestige has plummeted, Gandhi has come under repeated assault by members of his own Congress (I) Party. Over the past month he has tried to reassert control by expelling from the party four former ministers who openly criticized him, including V.P. Singh, the driving force behind probes of corruption early in Gandhi's administration. Singh, 56, has emerged as the leader of a burgeoning opposition movement that embraces both Congress (I) Party dissidents and opposition leaders. Says V.C. Shukla, one of the former ministers expelled by Gandhi: "Unless Rajiv Gandhi goes, the Congress ((Party)) will be ruined."

Named Prime Minister just hours after his mother Indira was assassinated, in October 1984, Gandhi at first impressed his countrymen with his handling of problems at home and abroad. But recently his efforts have turned sour. The peace pact he negotiated with Sikh separatists in Punjab has been shredded by terrorists. Government bureaucrats have defeated his efforts to untangle red tape. His standing as a vote getter has been damaged by defeats for his party in six of the past seven state elections.

Gandhi is accused of being petulant, indecisive and dissembling. His response to criticism has been to hint that foreign powers are plotting to "destabilize" the country. Says Indian Express Editor Arun Shourie, one of Gandhi's harshest critics: "He is not a deep person. He says what he thinks will please you." Political insiders in New Delhi have taken to calling Gandhi "the Boy."

Despite his troubles, Gandhi still has the backing of a majority in the lower house of Parliament, where his party controls more than 400 of the 544 seats. But even if he survives to serve out his term, he will have an uphill struggle to carry on past the next national elections, which must be held by 1989.