India End of an Enchanted Honeymoon

Once highly popular, Gandhi is losing his golden glow

"Failure," said Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, 42, last week, "is part of any mission of this magnitude." Gandhi was comforting India's space scientists after the country's newest rocket ended its maiden flight in a watery crash, a fate that also befell an American Atlas-Centaur rocket later in the week. But Gandhi could easily have been speaking of even more unhappy news that reached him the same day. In two of three state elections, his Congress (I) Party had suffered major setbacks at the hands of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the strongest of the country's several Communist parties. The...

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