Indira&Sanjay Gandhi

I Europa beskrivs Indira Gandhi och hennes far huvudsakligen i positiva termer, särskilt i Sverige förmodligen pga hennes goda relationer med Olof Palme, men i verkligheten är denna vänskap lika pinsam för honom som hans besök i Havanna. Bland beroendeteoretiker och marxister på svenska kulturtidningar har fattigdomen i Indien alltid tillskrivits den västerländska imperialismen. När det i själva verket var ett utslag av Sovjet imperialismen, Indien anses vara den mest effektiva infiltrationen av ett land som KGB någonsin har utfört, det fanns ett otal ministrar och journalister som betalades av KGB under Indira Gandhis tid vid makten. Jag kommer att återkomma till detta senare.

Varför beskrivs då Indira Gandhi ständigt i så okritiska termer i Sverige (och övriga Europa)? Endast engelsmännen har en någorlunda sansad bild av henne. Är lockelsen att hon var en kvinna? En kvinnlig statsminister i världens största demokrati. Med tanke på omdömet om Margret Thatcher, knappast. Lockelsen ligger nog snarare i hennes populistiska anti-amerikanism. Under Indira Gandhis tid så utvecklades Indien allt mer till en Sovjetisk koloni, indier åkte till Moskva för att utbilda sig, indisk export (huvudsakligen råvaror) gick nästan uteslutande till Sovjet, Sovjet i sin tur byggde tung industri och sålde vapen till Indien. Inte alls olikt förhållandet mellan Indien och England. Där Indien exporterade bomull och England sydde kläder.

På hemmaplan införde Indira (&Sanjay) Gandhi undantagstillstånd, hon nationaliserade banker, fängslade kritiska journalister, bulldozrade iväg slummen från städerna och tvångssteriliserade för att få födelsetalen under kontroll. Undantagstillståndet som varade i 19 månader infördes efter journalister hade avslöjat valfusk från valet 1971, samt att Janaty Party (oppositionen) vunnit valet i Gujarat. Familjen Gandhi kände att makten som de dittils tagit för given var på väg at glida dom ur händerna. Så här beskrivs Nehru/Gandhi klanen allt oftare i indiska tidningar. Tyvärr har jag bara pappersversionen och kan inte länka.

"The Fabian Socialism that India embraced under Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister and Mrs. Gandhi’s father, and the statist direction he took the country in could be put down to an ideological mistake that many of his generation made. But under his daughter the state became a conscious tool of oppression. Her government used ideology merely as rhetoric, and concentrated solely on accumulating power at the expense of the freedom of citizens.

Economic freedom was the first casualty. In 1969, Mrs. Gandhi nationalized all the big banks in the country. Gradually, this was followed by a series of draconian bills designed to suffocate private enterprise. The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (1973) restricted foreign investment and imposed currency controls. The Industrial Disputes Act (amended by Mrs. Gandhi in 1976 and 1982) prevented companies with more than 100 workers from laying them off without government permission, thus distorting labor markets and providing a disincentive to industrial expansion.

The Urban Land Ceiling Act (1976) distorted land markets in urban areas, exacerbating the growth of slums. Mrs. Gandhi also reserved certain industries for small-scale companies, denying larger companies from benefiting from economies of scale, and pegging back labor-intensive manufacturing and preventing an export boom.

Mrs. Gandhi admired not just the economic policies of the Soviet Union, but clearly shared that empire’s disdain for democracy and political freedom. In 1975, after a judge found her guilty of election fraud in 1971 and ruled that she give up her seat in parliament, she declared a “state of emergency.” Articles 352 to 360 of the Indian constitution specify that when the country is faced with external or internal threats, the government can impose a state of emergency and assume what are, in effect, totalitarian powers.

The Emergency, as it is popularly known, lasted 19 months. Civil rights effectively ceased to exist, and people who opposed Mrs. Gandhi, including politicians and journalists, were summarily thrown into jail. It was a Stalinesque era. Mrs. Gandhi's younger son, Sanjay, became notorious for his rampant behavior, bordering on the criminal and similar to that displayed years later by Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday. Among Mr. Gandhi’s pet schemes was a misguided family planning program under which thousands of young men were forcibly made to undergo vasectomies.

Mrs. Gandhi revoked the emergency in 1977, called for general elections, and was voted out of power. That was a tactical error, not a change of heart, and it came about partly because of self-deception. She truly believed that she enjoyed popular support, a perception partly based on the reports of intelligence agencies, who naturally told her what she wanted to hear."