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Any cooling of the friendship with Moscow will inevitably affect India's relations with China and, indirectly, with neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan, where March elections have led to unrest and widespread resentment. Charging that Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's party had won through electoral fraud, opposition leaders refused to take their seats in Parliament. Last week, as disorder spread, Bhutto ordered the arrest of top opposition members. There were fears that, if the trouble continued, he might have to impose martial law.
Functioning Anarchy. Can Desai, a venerable ascetic—some have called him a Hindu Calvinist—really hold India together? Will the country again become the functioning anarchy it was before the emergency? There are some reasons for worry. Although a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi's, Desai does not have the charisma associated with the Nehru heritage. He has a just reputation for being stubborn, unwilling to compromise. He heads a party that is united in its loathing for Mrs. Gandhi but divided on almost everything else. On labor matters, for example, the Socialist members of the Janata coalition are likely to press for labor bonuses and union participation in industry. Meanwhile, pro-business members of the former Jana Sangh Party will resist such moves. The Jana Sangh wing of Janata favors a strong central government, while most other members of the party want stronger local autonomy, especially in light of the authoritarianism of the previous regime. All Janata elements agree at least in supporting restoration of India's traditional liberties.
At week's end Desai named a 19-member Cabinet that included members of his party's various factions—and, most important, included Jagjivan Ram, whose Congress for Democracy remained a separate party in coalition with Janata. But Ram and two other politicians on Desai's list failed to show up, claiming they hadn't joined the Cabinet after all. "They will come," said Desai serenely. Maybe so, but the incident did not augur well for the future.
What would have happened had Mrs. Gandhi not called elections this year? Presumably, the emergency would have drifted on and on, further eroding the prospect that democracy would have returned to India. She believed that the "discipline" of the emergency had been beneficial to her country, but she also knew that India—which had been blessed with two consecutive record harvests—was unlikely to have a third such monsoon gift, and that prices were again rising. Thus, at a time of relative prosperity she called quick elections in the apparent hope of enhancing the legitimacy of her rule. She erred badly, though she will obviously be remembered for far more than her role in the emergency. Her aunt, Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit—Nehru's distinguished sister—opposed Mrs. Gandhi's imposition of the emergency. Nonetheless, she said last week, "Indira was the only man in the Cabinet. She'll be the only man in the Congress now, because she has taken her defeat valiantly and with great dignity."