THE. PERSONAL and political defeat of Indira Gandhi and her heir apparent in the recent elections marks a waterand shed in Indian politics.
It breaks the long period of political dominance enjoyed by the Congress Party. It shatters the political stability of the Indian ruling class and is a slightest telling blow against the EmerAgency measures so enthusiastically supported by Indian monopoly capitalism.
The masses have replied to two years of continuous repression, wage freeze, forced sterilisations and slum clearances" by shattering the power of the central leadership of the Congress. Indian politics will never be the same again.
RESILIENCE
The elections have also de*a monstrated the resilience of India's bourgeois democratic institutions. implanted by the British in where collaboration with the Congress Party have once again shown their movement. enabling India's ruling class to contain the masses within existing, albeit deformed, parlialess mentary institutions.
Duma and of revoluLa Third World country contituted at present.
TEMPORARY of the problems dhi has been ditched, Wing class alternative Janata long.
it is the structures national polarisation.
In reality a effectiveness in This is a unique situation for country. A for the size of India cannot, of course, be excluded in the future but it would mark the beginning of the end of the federation as it is From a more long term view the present elections solve none indian society, for while Indira Ganthose who have defeated her can at best provide a temporary rulparty is too unstable a coalition to last for The only coherent and organised political force within extreme Sangh. For it to exercise power even within a broad coalition can only increase class and vote for the Janata Party represented the only way for the masses to show their complete disgust for the Emergency and those who initiated it. Given the support SOCISUIE of the Communist Party of India for the Emergency and Sanjay Gandhi at election meeting.
the fact that the Communist Party (Marxist) was hit repression and could not offer a national focus, it is hardly surprising that the masses saw In voting Indira Gandhi and her ruling team out of office they have created an internal situation which can only get more and more unstable.
On the foreign policy front the defeat of Gandhi will come make as a body blow to the Soviet leadership which, through the of Brezhnev and through Pravda had supported every single measure of the TARIQ ALI Emergency. A for Soviet foreign policy in India could further exacerbate the crisis within the CPI itself, leading to new alignments.
Meanwhile 50,000 Naxalite political prisoners still rot in India's jails. During the campaigning a number of opposition leaders pledged that they would release them unconditionally. If this is not done revolutionary socialists must demand for release of all other political prisoners the central focus for their political agitation in the coming weeks and months.