Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
1672401
label
Meet the Press, 8/24/75 - Indira Gandhi
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
1672401
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
Meet the Press, 8/24/75 - Indira Gandhi
citationUrl
collections
Ron Nessen Files (Ford Administration)
Ron Nessen's Sunday Interview Show Transcripts
subjects
India
Human rights
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
1672401
coverageEndDate
day
24
logicalDate
1975-08-24
month
8
year
1975
coverageStartDate
day
24
logicalDate
1975-08-24
month
8
year
1975
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
1d8c8a05fe949fd9
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box 70, folder "Meet the Press, 8/24/75 - Indira
Gandhi" of the Ron Nessen Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald R. Ford donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Digitized from Box 70 of the Ron Nessen Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
PLEASE CREDIT ANY QUOTES OR EXCERPTS FROM THIS NBC RADIO AND
TELEVISION PROGRAM TO "NBC'S MEET THE PRESS. "
12:30 PM EDT
hold FOR - - RELEASE - -
SUNDAY, - AUGUST 24
MEET THE PRESS
Produced by Lawrence E. Spivak
-
-
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 1975
GUEST:
INDIRA GANDHI - The Prime Minister of India
MODERATOR:
Lawrence E. Spivak
PANEL:
James L. Greenfield - The New York Times
Elizabeth Drew - The New Yorker
Carl T. Rowan - Chicago Daily News
Jim Laurie - NBC News
- - -
- - -
This is a rush transcript pro-
vided for the information and
convenience of the press. Accu-
racy is not guaranteed. In case
of doubt, please check with
MELT THE PRESS
2
NR. SPIVAK: From New Delhi, India and Washington, D. c.,
MEET THE PRESS Brings you today an interview with the Prime
Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. It will be two months next
Tuesday that her government declared a national state of
emergency.
The Prime Minister is in a television studio in New Delhi.
With her is NBC correspondent Jim Laurie.
The other questioners on our panel today in our Washington
studio are Elizabeth Drew of The New Yorker, James L.
Greenfield of the New York Times and Carl T. Rowan of the
Chicago Daily News.
Madame Prime Minister, I would like to start the
questioning.
In your address on the State of Emergency you said, "The
Actions of a few are endangering the rights of the vast majority."
What rights of the majority were being endangered?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: A few people had created a
situation of indiscipline which was leading to us great
problems of law and order and had they continued I think we
would have had anarchy in this country.
Unfortunately these movements which started quite some
time ago, they declared a plan of action on the 25th of June,
which would have aggravated the situation.
MR. SPIVAK: A New York Times story says that although
you insisted you were responding to a threat to internal
stability, that there were many who believed that the only
real threat was to your own political power and future. How
do you answer that?
3
PRIME MINISTER GANDIII: I don't see any truth in that
at all because everybody knows what has been happening here
in the last year or so, We had a movement in the state of
Gujaratt, we had a movement in the state of Bihar and in
Gujaratt the members of our legislative assembly were threatened
and intimidated and forced to resign. There was violence.
Students were not attending college. We had strikes. In fact
at all levels there was such indiscipline that even government
functioning was becoming extremely difficult.
When this campaign was announced, they said that the
motive was to paralyze the central government. Earlier
they tried to paralyze the government of these two different
states which I mentioned, Gujaratt and Bihar. But it is
obvious that if this happened on a nationwide scale - and this
was what was announced -- there would have been wide scale
violence and in this period of international uncertainty and
internal economic difficulty, I think there was grave internal
danger to the country.
MR. SPIVAK: One final question, Madame Prime Minister.
The Saturday Review quotes you as saying in your recent
interview with them, "What has been done in India is not an
abrogation of democracy but an effort to safeguard it."
Now how can you safeguard democracy if you abandon the
very essence of democracy, free press, free speech and the
right of dissent?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: Democracy has two obligations.
There are obligations on the government that it should allow
free press, free speech and association and so on but it also
has an obligation on the others to observe the rules of the
4
game, if you like, but that was not being done, and this was
what was resulting. This was a very small minority. It was
not a question of the entire country wanting something. It was
a small minority. Elections were only a few months to go and
had they waited they would have had the verdict of the people.
But one of the opposition leaders said, "This will have
to be fought out on the streets."
Another one said, "There has to be total revolution," and
he tried to incite not only the industrial worker but the
Army and the police.
Now this could not have strengthened democracy in any way.
If the people feel that their needs are not being met and
their lives are being constantly disturbed, and I mean the
mass of the people, then that poses very grave danger to the
system.
- -
MRS. DREW: Mrs. Gandhi, when will you restore the
civil liberties which have been suspended?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: It is very difficult to give a
date. Naturally, this is not a permanent situation. There
are many different types of people involved. They are the recog-
nized political parties, there were certain groups with whom
they had combined which said they were not political, which
didn't believe in democracy, never said they believed in
democracy, and this was the major danger.
Now if those who genuinely believe in democracy are
willing to observe the rules of democracy, then this whole
process could be expedited.
5
As you know, although we have censorship of the press
and some people are under detention, the whole opposition is
not under detention. In fact, most of them are out. Most of
those who are in prison are not political people, Some of
them are what you call bad elements which the police have on
their list, and others are of these parties which we have
banned and, as I said, the parties banned are not political
parties but are those which had plans for violence and had
committed violence in the past.
MRS. DREW: But Madame Prime Minister, with something like
60,000 people in jail and the opposition silenced and the
press censored, how can any free decision be arrived at as to
when there is order and when there could be civil liberties
returned? Is it not just subject to your own decision?
PRIME MINISTER GANDIII: No, it isn't. I am afraid you
have a very wrong view of what is happening, here.
Firstly, the number that you have mentioned is out of all
proportion with the truth. It is nothing like that, at all.
People are already being released almost every day.
Those decisions taken are not taken by a person, they are
taken, as they were taken before, by a cabinet, by various
committees and at various levels.
The government is functioning as it was functioning.
I have no powers than I had before, Our emergency asyou know is
under the Constitution and we had to ratify it in Parliament
and even though some members of Parliament are in prison,
some opposition of all parties did attend that session and
the small number who are under detention would have made no
6
difference to the two-thirds majority even if they had
been out. This was done under the Constitution.
MRS. DREW: Will you give any pledge that you will in
effect lift the State of Emergency?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: I can assure you that I do not
want this to continue indefinitely. In fact I can also
assure you that I am deeply committed to democracy. Not
merely because it is a good idea but because, for a country
of India's vast size and great diversity, I think democracy --
that is, the people's participation --- is the only way to
make it function.
MR. GREENFIELD: Madame Prime Minister, I think one of the
problems is that we still don't clearly, at least in this
country, understand just what crisis you did face. We see
your strength in India. You outnumber the opposition in
Parliament two to one. Out of twenty-two states, you control
all but three.
Much of your opposition is vocal. Jai Prakash Narain
says he is nonviolent. You, yourself, say this is a small
minority. Why did you really have to move in the extreme way
you did? We simply cannot see that it was a national emergency.
I wonder if you would elaborate on that.
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: Well, perhaps you are just too
far away. I have tried to explain that although the numbers
of people involved in the agitations were not large, we all
know that, although the work of construction needs hard
labor and needs time and people, the work of destruction needs
very, very little time or people or energy.
7
This is what was happening. In Parliament, itself,
there was obstruction. Government business could not go on
and many important subjects -- economic, education and so on --
just couldn't get to a discussion, because a very few people,
a handful of people, were disrupting it.
But something much worse happened in these two states, as
I just said. That the Gujaratt Assembly was dissolved merely
through the agitation of some people. And at one point they
said they should have the right to recall. Now I don't think
that your Congress has any such thing.
And who were the people asking for recall? Not those who
had elected the member but some students from the city who had
no idea about his constituency, about his work, about his
reputation. So this was the sort of thing that was happening.
As I said, that, worse than the actual things -- I mean we don't
have the time to go into the details of these matters, but worse
than this was the general atmosphere of irresponsibility.
Everybody said that this was a time to get what they could for
themselves, and nobody bothered about the country.
Now in a developing country you simply cannot continue in
that way. And the very announcement of the emergency did
bring about this discipline and I can assure you that if you
were here and could go about, you would see that there is no
fear, at all, There is calm. People are going about their
business in a much more effective way. Whether it is the House
fight, whother it is the student people, the students who were
giving up exams, who were threatening the supervisors, they
are now peacefully studying. And this is happening in all of
8
the spheres of activity. This is democracy in a way. That
the people should feel that this is not government business
just to run the country, it is their business.
I personally believe in a greater decentralization but
it needs also a strong center which will keep the country
together.
A prime minister's primary duty is really to keep the
country's unity and integrity. If you lose that, then how
do you keep democracy or anything else?
MR. GREENFIELD: I agree with much of what you say and
if it is true and if you want to tell the world this, why not
put the people on trial? You have a good court system. Why
not let the world know what they were about to do?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: How would the world know what
they were going to do?
MR. GREENFIELD: I think if you had trials and you
tried them and it was explained that they were threatening
to endanger your country. But none of that is available.
There is not a gfree press now in India, even to reporters.
I think if you had a free press or allowed information to get
out and put people on trial they would understand your
problem more. Do you agree? Why not a free trial?
PRIME MINISTER AGNDHI: Court cases go on for years and
years and it is very difficult to prove anything. If a
person has not personally indulged in arson or whatever, you
couldn't convict him. What we have done in a large number of
cases is preventive detention, because we had information
that this might happen, Not that the particular individual
might do it but that a situation was being created which
9
would lead to violence.
Now this is not merely guess work. We came to this
decision after the experience of these things happening in
different parts of the country and at different times.
MR. ROWAN: Madame Prime Minister, there has been some
talk that you are moving toward one-party rule in India. Are
you moving toward one-party rule, or not?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: No. I don't think it would work.
And we have not banned our parties.
MR. ROWAN: Now one of the things that your Congress
Party has done in this emergency is to reduce substantially the
power of the courts. You say at some point you are going to
lift the emergency. Can you ever restore a situation
where the courts play the role they were playing prior to
this situation?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: All countries have had to change
their constitutions from time to time, including the United
States of America. There is no conflict between the judiciary
and the parlianent. Neither of these is higher than the other.
They are supposed to be equal, The executive power lies with
parliament in a parliamentary system, which is what we have.
MR. ROWAN: Your parliament, though, has passed a retroactive
law declaring you not guilty of any kinds of election violations.
Now I understand your supreme court on August 25 is going
to make a ruling as to whether that constitutional amendment is
valid.
If the Supreme Court says it is not valid, will you accept
the judgment of the Supreme Court?
PRIME MINISTER GANDIII: That is a hypothetical question.
10
I don't want to comment on my case because it is not allowed,
here, while such matters are in court.
MR. ROWAN: My question is very simple, Madame Prime
Minister. It is whether or not you believe the Supreme
Court of India has still the authority to decide whether this
constitutional amendment is legal.
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: The Supreme Court does have the
right to decide but as I said, here, the essence of
parliamentary democracy does make parliament supreme, in so
far as all executive action is concerned.
MR. LAURIE: Madame Prime Minister, you say you are still
committed to parliamentary democracy. Elections are due in
the first of the year, in February. Will they take place?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHII: I can't give a definite answer
at this point because naturally much depends on how the
situation is. We must be able to ensure fair elections.
MR. LAURIE: What are the contingencies, here? What
would influence you to have elections in the early part of
the year?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: It is too early to say this.
The emergency has only been there for two months and many
things have taken place since then.
MR. LAURIE: But you seem to have things well in hand,
from my observations at least here in India. Is it not
time for some sort of relaxation?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: This is a difficult question to
answer. Not because there isn't an answer but these things
just can't be announced. There is no doubt that one must
11
choose a time for relaxation but there is also the question
that the other side must be willing, also.
MR. LAURIE: Returning to that question of the other side,
what would the political detainees have to do to gain their
release? Is there any possibility of having some of these
political prisoners be released, at this time, or in the near
future?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: As I said, that they should observe
the rules of democracy. That is, you speak in Parliament,
you defeat the party in the elections but you don't take it to
the streets and you don't intimidate people to resign their
seats in between.
MR. SPIVAK: Madame Prime Minister, in your address on the
State of Emergency you said, "Certain powers have gone to
the length of exciting our armed forces to mutiny." How much
real danger was there that the armed forces would mutiny?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: I don't think there was a real
danger but this sort of thing, it causes confusion in the minds
of people, in the masses of the public as well as amongst the
armed forces. I have no doubt at all that the armed forces and
the police would stand firm but that a person would say this
sort of thing and say, let me be tried for treason, I don't
think that is a good situation in a country which is just
developing and is at a very difficult stage of development.
MRS. DREW: You speak of the necessity of discipline and of
the irresponsibility of the opposition. Are you saying that
it is possible that a country with the size and the problems
of India that there are situations, and we might be facing one,
that democracy might have to give way in order to make progress?
12
PRIME MINISTER GANDHII: No, I don't think so,
MR. GREENFIELD: Just eight months ago, Madame Prime
Minister, in your New Year's address you said, "Some
totalitarian systems have put all their people to work, have
?
eliminated flies and also the dissenters, but many dictator-
ships have failed to solve the basic problem. When this
problem was opened to us we deliberately chose the democratic
system although we knew it was slower." Was it too slow?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: No but it was --- you see the
last two years have been extraordinarily difficult years
economically speaking for nearly every country in the world,
so there was a special situation which was exploited by the
opposition.
My case is not really relevant except that it gave
another cause for escalating this sort of campaign and there
has been a campaign of hate and calumny against me personally,
against those who support me, against my family. Not just
now when this emergency is taking place but for a year or more
before.
MR. SPIVAK: We have only two minutes left.
MR. ROWAN: Madame Prime Minister, recently some of
your Congress Party supporters were outside the U. S.
Information Agency offices shouting, "Shame on the CIA."
Do you know of anything done by the CIA or any other U. S.
Government agency that caused you these difficulties, or that
you can construe as an effort to undermine your government?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: I can only say that what has been
appearing in your own press and the media has disturbed many
13
within your country and many people in other countries,
including India. Sometimes there are presences which you cannot
prove.
MR. LAURIE: Madame Prime Minister, what do you think
your emergency has achieved that could not have been achieved
in a less radical manner?
PRIME MINISTER GANDHI: The people have had a shock and
they have realized thut they have certain obligations to
themselves, because this is not for us, for the government,
it is for themselves. If the country doesn't develop or the
students don't study, it is they who suffer, not the government.
So this new feeling --- it is even enthusiasm, it is not just
discipline -- this can involve people, which is a very impor-
tant step in democracy, the participation of people at all
lovels.
MR. LAURIE: If there is enthusiasm, though, in some areas,
in other areas I detect, at least among intellectuals, some
fear, fear of being arrested. Doesn't this kind of poison
the climate here a bit?
PRIME MINISTER GANDIII: I think that this is very limited.
There is some fear amongst those who were indulging in black
marketing and hoarding and smuggling because we were taking
severe measures against them.
MR. SPIVAK: I am sorry to interrupt, Madane Prime
Minister, but our time is up. Thank you, Madame Prime Minister,
for being with us today on MEET THE PRESS.
- - -