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TIME New Delhi Bureau Chief William Smith and Correspondent James Shepherd recently talked with Gandhi about these and other matters. The interview took place in a small parlor of the Prime Minister's residence in New Delhi, where Sanjay and his wife Menaka, 20, also live. Reported Smith and Shepherd: "Unlike most Indians of his age, Sanjay scorns Western-style clothes for a traditional knee-length kurta, worn over white cotton pajamas. Shy but well-spoken, Sanjay began by describing with obvious pride the car he designed from scratch. Later, when he took his guests for a ride, he tactfully inquired, 'Shall I drive fast or slow?' before tearing off on a test-drive performance over the bumpy roads and fields surrounding the Maruti factory. His guests' consensus on the car: noisy but seemingly sturdy." Excerpts from the interview:
ON FOREIGN CRITICISM OF MRS. GANDHI'S EMERGENCY RULE: There is a tremendous double standard. If [something] is done in the U.S., then it is very democratic. If it is done here, then it is terrible, it is the death of democracy. Would you tolerate a situation in America where the opposition took it on themselves to catch hold of the elected members of the assembly, as they did in Gujarat, and beat them up until they resigned, and burn down their houses? Did the British tolerate the building up of violence in Northern Ireland? They declared an emergency, they sent their troops in there. Did the Americans ever say that democracy has died in Britain?
For very much milder agitation in the U.S., troops have been brought out, dogs have been let onto the crowds. We never brought out troops here, even after the emergency. I mean, you say that democracy is suppressed here, but it is alive enough that we just couldn't use troops in such cases.
ON RESTRICTIONS ON THE INDIAN PRESS: I think there is much less censorship here than there is in most countries of the world. [But] the press has been controlled by a few people, and the role it played was the role it was ordered to play by these people, and that was to try and disrupt as much as they could. They told blatant lies the whole time.
ON INDIA'S MIXED ECONOMY: I don't feel you should throttle either the state-owned or the private sector. You should let them run in competition with each other, and let the best one win. Yes, I think there are too many controls on the state-owned companies.
ON HIS POLITICAL FUTURE: Honestly, I don't see any role. I didn't come into it for the sake of politics, I came into it in a time of crisis. I don't know if I'll stick at it after [the emergency] is over. I find it just as satisfying to hammer away at some piece of steel. [As for being Prime Minister], the question doesn't arise. We have 600 million people here, and quite a lot of them have been in this field longer than I have.
* Her other son, Rajiv, 31, is a pilot for India Airlines, the country's domestic carrier. Mrs. Gandhi's husband, Feroze Gandhi, a newspaper editor and Member of Parliament, died in 1960.