Rajiv Gandhi--Style Is His Own : Mother’s Legend Fades; Troubled Areas Calmed

There are still lines of the curious and the morbid every morning outside 1 Safdarjang Road, the rambling bungalow where Indira Gandhi was assassinated a year ago Thursday.

Under a clear plastic cover placed on the path between her home and her office in what is now the Indira Gandhi Memorial, a visitor can see stains of her blood. Through loudspeakers hidden behind nearby acacia trees and bougainvillea, the late prime minister’s recorded speeches can be heard.

Around the country, a few other places have been set aside in memory of the fallen leader. Streets and parks have been renamed in her honor.

But, to a remarkable degree, the woman who ruled India for 16 of the last 19 years is a rapidly fading memory here.

By midday, the lines disappear outside 1 Safdarjang Road. And, at a makeshift courtroom in the Tihar Jail compound, the trial of three men accused of plotting her assassination proceeds before empty seats and dozing clerks.

Instead of being remembered and enshrined for her dharma --her acts of good--Indira Gandhi in death has absorbed much of the blame for the frustrations of this vastly overpopulated and impoverished land. She is faulted for its corruption, suffocating bureaucracy, economic shortcomings and tense relations with neighboring countries.

“We must use her as a visible symbol of the things that are wrong in our country,” urged Arun Shourie, a prominent intellectual and bitter critic of the late prime minister.

Indira’s own son is helping Indians forget about her. Rajiv Gandhi took over the office of prime minister on the day of her death and won it in his own right at the polls last December.

Since then, he has taken a series of bold actions radically different in style from that of his mother. He has signed agreements with dissident groups in Punjab and Assam states, two of the country’s most troubled areas. He has restored good relations with all of India’s neighbors except archenemy Pakistan. His anti-corruption campaign and government accountability program have Cabinet ministers hiding from television cameras and top police officials opting for early retirement.

In the process, the 41-year-old prime minister, a college flunk-out who until five years ago was a pilot with the nation’s domestic airline, has brought millions of alienated Indians, including young people and urban intellectuals, into his political camp. His efforts have even impressed opposition leaders.

“The present prime minister has earned the good will of vast sections of people by showing that he means business and that he is different from his predecessors,” said Janata Party leader Rama-krishna Hegde.

Significantly, Gandhi is being compared not to his mother but with his grandfather, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Rajiv Gandhi may be the son of Indira, say his new supporters, including Arun Shourie, but he has the soul of Nehru.

“Today, Rajiv Gandhi is not looked upon as the son of Indira Gandhi,” Shourie said, “but as the person who is distancing us from her ways.” The support of Shourie and other young Indian intellectuals is significant because, during practically all of Indira’s time in power, intellectuals were scorned by the government. Some were even jailed during the 1975-77 period of emergency rule.

Signs of the mending relationship between the government and the intelligentsia, a relationship that flourished under Nehru, included a recent dinner party at a fashionable New Delhi residence. The prime minister sat cross-legged on the floor as other guests, carrying plates of food, chummily stepped across him and challenged him in friendly debate.

“He is psychologically secure,” one of the guests said later. “He has a complete lack of pretension.”

Characterization of Elitism

But this reconciliation with well-educated, middle-class intellectuals has opened Gandhi to criticism that he is an elitist who cares more for his prep school cronies than he does for the Indian masses.

For example, Gandhi’s decision to attend the golden anniversary celebration Nov. 3 of his alma mater, Doon School in the Himalayan foothills, has been criticized as in poor taste. The celebration coincides with the anniversary of the cremation of his mother as well as the slaughter of thousands of Sikhs in the assassination’s aftermath.

Gandhi spokesman Mani Shankar Aiyer, another Doon School graduate, denies that there have been major changes in the direction of Indian government since Rajiv became prime minister.

“There has really not been any change in substance between Rajiv Gandhi and his mother,” the spokesman said. “He is continuing and has carried out what he inherited from her. If it seems to be different, it is because there has been a very, very rapid rate of problem-solving under Rajiv Gandhi.”

But Aiyer agrees that the atmosphere in India is very different now. “We were all in agony a year ago,” he said.

The Indian government just before Indira Gandhi was slain seemed all but paralyzed by the mounting conflict in the Punjab, where the majority Sikhs were enraged by the Indian army raid on Sikhdom’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple of Amritsar.

In Assam, a student-led movement against illegal immigration from neighboring states and from Bangladesh had prevented elections. All communication with opposition leaders had broken down.

Indira Gandhi ‘Drifting’

“In her later years, Mrs. Gandhi was unable to make decisions,” said P.P. Pande, a journalist who covered the prime minister’s activities for years. “She was drifting. Nobody even knew who was handling the Punjab problem.”

A Western diplomat, a scholar of South Asian politics, remarked: “A year ago, India was about as low as it could be. Even before Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated, her party was in disarray and she looked like she would be hard put to win elections that were mandated. There was talk she would call them off.”

In Punjab, Rajiv Gandhi reached an accord with moderate Sikh leaders and pressed ahead with state elections that resulted in victory for the principal Sikh party, Akali Dal, over Gandhi’s nationally dominant Congress Party.

In Assam, he signed an agreement with the student leaders that will regulate the number of immigrants.

Internationally, Rajiv Gandhi has impressed business and political leaders of Western countries, including the United States. “He has them knocking on the door to do business with India,” the Western diplomat said. For example, India and the United States have signed a technology transfer agreement that will enable India for the first time to buy many advanced items, including some with military applications. And in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, India bought $894 million worth of American products, $400 million more than the year before.

The Western business deals also mark a radical departure from the protectionist industrial policies of his mother, whose governments blocked imports on the theory that indigenous Indian industries would develop as a result.

‘Pathetic Record’

Rajiv Gandhi, however, has been especially critical of India’s protected industries. At a recent news conference, he said, “. . . The record of private industry in actually developing technology is pathetic. They have not developed any technology.

“India cannot be held to ransom by such industries,” he went on. “When industry becomes inefficient, when industry starts costing the country, ultimately it is the poorest person who pays for it.”

On the non-economic international front, Gandhi has also had successes, although India’s relationship with Pakistan has cooled further this year amid continuing Indian charges, denied by Pakistan, that the Pakistanis are developing nuclear weapons.

Many observers believe that the prime minister’s most striking accomplishment in the area of foreign affairs has been the acceptance of India as a mediator by both sides in the Sri Lanka conflict. The island nation’s majority Sinhalese government sought India’s help in dealing with Tamil rebels who want an independent state.

At times, the Indian role has seemed to come close to intervention with the blessing of both sides, a situation that has a South Asian diplomat here shaking his head in wonder.

“Over the past five or six years, India has had problems with all of its neighbors,” the diplomat said. “Rajiv has set about settling all those problems--in Nepal, in Bangladesh, in Bhutan.

“In Sri Lanka, I think he has done a remarkable thing. India is playing a major role in the internal matters of Sri Lanka. Under Rajiv, policies that are basically intrusive appear to be enlightened--a tremendous achievement, and not Mrs. Gandhi’s style at all.”

Cleanup of Ruling Party

But perhaps the biggest change of all in India without Indira Gandhi has been in the ruling political party. Still officially called the Congress-I Party (the I being for Indira), the organization had, in the last few years of her power, turned into something synonymous in the public mind with corruption and sloth.

Without publicly criticizing his mother for letting the party apparatus slip into this state, Rajiv Gandhi launched a large-scale cleanup campaign. In January, as its first major act, Gandhi had his new Parliament pass an “anti-defection” bill that prevented political parties, particularly his own, from buying off other legislators in order to take control of state assemblies. The practice was common during his mother’s rule.

In state elections in March, hundreds of corrupt incumbents were dropped from the Congress-I slate. Gandhi also ordered investigations into police departments and even income tax offices.

Earlier this month, a Central Bureau of Investigation raid on senior income tax officials resulted in a sensational haul by Indian standards.

Yogi in Session

At the home of one official, who begged investigators not to disturb him while he was practicing yoga, a raid netted gold bars, 40 bottles of Scotch whisky and nearly $100,000 in cash. Such evidence of wealth is suspicious in India, where the salaries of senior tax officials are no more than $300 a month. The per capita income in India is $250.

Using television, which now reaches almost 70% of India’s roughly 750 million people, Gandhi has attacked corruption and government incompetence in more subtle ways. He has asked the government-owned network to produce a program in which reporters question Cabinet ministers.

Gandhi himself is scheduled to appear in December.

More effective, however, has been the emergence under Gandhi of highly popular soap operas in which a common theme is a hero’s or heroine’s successfully battle against a pompous politician or a recalcitrant bureaucrat.

For the first time, politicians wearing the white cotton cap and vest of the Congress Party are depicted as villains. One Sunday morning show recently, for example, featured villagers turning against an obese Congress Party man who was portrayed constantly stuffing large pieces of cake in his mouth.

Criticism Unheard Of

“This never could have happened under Mrs. Gandhi,” journalist Pandit said, adding that in those days, “you couldn’t imagine television running plays critical of government.”

The “Rajani” program, said to be the prime minister’s favorite soap, is the most popular television program in India. The handsome young heroine, played by actress Priya Tendulkar, is described by one television producer, creator of a rival Indian soap opera, as a “video goddess Durga.”

In Hindu mythology, the 10-armed goddess Durga has enormous destructive power but usually harnesses it in the cause of good. She is forceful and defiant, yet protective of her people. She and her alter ego, the black goddess Kali, are favorites of the city of Calcutta and of West Bengal state.

When a woman in Indian society is strong, energetic and compassionate, she is often compared with Durga. Many years ago, another young woman, just emerging on the Indian political scene, was often favored by the same comparison: Indira Gandhi. But that, like much else about the late prime minister, is not often remembered any more.