India: After Nehru

The man chosen last week to command one-seventh of the world's people has a turkey neck, a smudgy mustache, and an expression of ineffable meekness. It is a little misleading, insists Lal Bahadur Shastri, the new Prime Minister of India. "I am not as simple as I look."

Nothing is simple in India, including Shastri's unanimous election. He was the clear choice of the country's three kingmakers, 1) Congress Party President Kamaraj Nadar, who controls four south Indian states, 2) Atulya Ghosh, boss of eastern India, and 3) Bombay's S. K. Patil, who personally directs some 100 of the 537...

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