India and the Soviet Union: A New Stage of Relations?

Abstract

THE DEFEAT OF Mrs. Indira Gandhi's government in the March 1977 elections held in India is a political landmark in the country's history. The victory of the Janata party, and the assumption of office by Prime Minister Morarji Desai, ended almost three decades of Congress party rule at the center. Since key figures in the new leadership have in the past been classified as representatives of the right wing of the Indian political scene, the possibility of a change in India's long rapport with the Soviet Union was considered, not only in the West but apparently in the USSR as well. Moscow had good cause to be less than enthusiastic about the new turn of events in India and uncertain about the attitude that the new government would adopt toward the Soviet Union. The Soviet press had lent enthusiastic support to Mrs. Gandhi's State of Emergency, a period during which many members of the new government had been jailed. When the decision was taken to hold elections, and the campaign got under way, the Janata party was summarily dismissed as a group of scheming reactionaries. As if this were not sufficient, the new Prime Minister was a man who had long been the Kremlin's ideological bete noire.' While it is premature to speak with any certainty on the future of Indo-Soviet relations, a stock-taking of Soviet-Indian ties and a study of the Janata's approach to foreign policy should enable one to make a