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"What is really at stake," writes TIME Correspondent Dan Coggin from New Delhi, "is the political stability that has allowed the 550 million people of the world's largest working democracy to begin their slow emergence from centuries of poverty, ignorance and disease. If the Congress umbrella splinters, sending its diverse elements running in all directions for opportunistic alliances, India might well be plunged into political chaos." By 1972, Indira must therefore prove that the Congress can indeed get India moving. If she fails, her recent political triumphs, for all their flashiness, will count as nothing.
*Vacant since the death of President Zakir Husain last May.