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Inside
the
PAKJSTAN
by
Keith W. Stump
ERE
is a look at the
I ndia you rarely
hear about.
H
J
ndia is a puzzle to
many people in the developed
Western world. Yet
it
need not
be!
To the average person in the
West, the impression is one of a
fragile country in disarray, poised
on the brink of calamity.
The par adoxes, of course, seem
abundant. Modern India is a land
of splendor and squalor, of toler–
ance and violence, of nuclear reac–
tors and belcbing brick smoke–
stacks, of five-star botels and side–
walk squatters' huts.
But what are the
facts?
Statistics show that India- the
world 's most populous demacra-
cy- is today emerging as a major
industrial, economic and military
power!
Here, then, is the story of the
emerging new India- potentially
one of the world's
wealthiest
nations!
Electoral Landsllde
With the assassination last October
31 of Prime Minister Indira Gan–
dhi, 66, the curtain rang down on a
turbulent chapter in India's mod–
ero history. The death of the
woman who ruled India for most of
two decades cast a pall over the
future of the country.
future. The dangers to India were
endlessly discussed as the country
experienced its worst carnage since
the bloody partition of India and
Pakistan 37 years before. By offi–
cial estímate, the anti-Sikh violence
claimed more than 1,300 lives
across India.
Never before, declared sorne
Western observers, had the survival
of unified India stood in such dire
jeopardy.
I n the chaotic days just following
the assassination, uneasy observers
used pbrases such as "teetering on
the brink of the abyss" to express
their fears over India's uncertain
But behind the stormy , and
sometimes violent, events that have
hit the country in recent years líes
~
the fact that there is, in India, a
>
broad devotion to the grand idea of
~
the l ndian union- a devot ion that
~
cuts across religious, linguistic and
T
class lines.
~
Within days of Mrs. Gandhi's
<
death, this devotion asserted itself
ª
in the form of overwhelming
1
nationwide support of tbe succes–
~
sion to power of her son, Rajiv
- Gandhi, 40. Anxieties over l ndia's
i
future quickly began to subside.
~
The chiefs of the Congress (1)
~
Party chose Rajiv Gandhi as their
The
PLAIN TRUTH