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From the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, from tropical Madras to the freezing Himalayas, election fever was rising last week in India. Government printing presses rolled around the clock turning out ballots for 210 million eligible voters (all citizens over 21). About 125 million of them—more than the populations of England, France, Canada and Australia—are expected to go to the polls this month in the biggest free election in the world. Voting in most states will last a week beginning Feb. 18; returns from six snowbound constituencies in the north will not be in until April. Voters will use rubber stamps to make a cross after the candidate of their choice; for the benefit of illiterates, each candidate's party symbol has been marked on the ballot along with his name.
All over the subcontinent, candidates for the 494 seats in the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) and 2,930 seats in 13 state assemblies were on the stump. Groups of Communist Party workers gathered in Calcutta streets to act out skits on such issues as high prices, high rents and poor public transportation. A candidate in the Punjab campaigned from his jail cell; he was accused of trying to assassinate his opponent. In the Himalayan constituency of Ranikhet, a Congress Party aspirant promised to deal with his district's most urgent problem—a tiger that has so far devoured 20 people.
No matter how remote Himalayan tigers or even Calcutta Communists, Americans have an important stake in this outsize election. During the past 15 years, the U.S. has funneled $2.4 billion in aid into India. Though its interpretation of neutralism is often irritating to the West, India is the world's most populous (438 million) democracy, and could be a major force for freedom in Asia. Or it could merely be a confused and drifting giant, at the mercy of its fiercely aggressive Communist neighbor.
Nowhere are the issues more fervently debated than in the constituency of North Bombay, where a splenetic and tireless politician is campaigning hard to retain his parliamentary seat. His name is plastered on thousands of opposition posters slapped on tree trunks, buildings and boulders all over North Bombay. The posters show two red bayonets stabbing down from Red China into India; the words are less a slogan than an accusation: "Menon represents China, not India."
The Toy Car. Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon, Defense Minister in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Cabinet, has always inspired bitter antagonism from opponents both in and out of India. Abusive, rude and overbearing, Menon, 64, is a Western-educated intellectual who despises the West, a passionate foe of old-time colonialism who consistently dismisses or ignores the new-style Communist imperialism. Nehru values Menon highly as a friend, confidant and traveling apostle. He admires his provocative intelligence, uses him as a shock absorber to take attacks that might otherwise be directed at him or his government. "Menon is like a toy car," says a rival. "Nehru sets its pace by winding it and watching it go around. Whenever the car comes to an obstacle, Nehru removes the obstacle from its path and rewinds it."