Those of Mrs. Gandhi’s followers who have resorted to violence to protest against her imprisonment and expulsion from the Lok Sabha have done her grave injustice and her cause great harm. The former Prime Minister has been at pains to emphasize, on the one hand, her opposition to violent agitations, however grave the provocation and however just the cause, and, on the other, her commitment to function within the present system. On the eve of her imprisonment last Wednesday she made a special appeal to her followers not to take to violence. It is unfortunate that so many of them in so many places should have ignored it and that other Congress (I) leaders should not have renewed the appeal immediately reports of violent incidents began to reach them from large parts of the country. It is understandable that the extreme punishment handed down to Mrs. Gandhi on the insistence of the hawks in the Janata should have produced a strong reaction among her followers. But that can only explain the violence and not provide a justification for it. And it cannot even explain the silence of other Congress (I) leaders who must know that violence by their supporters can only give them a bad name with their other countrymen. It is still more extraordinary that Mrs. Gandhi’s followers in Karnataka and Andhra should have gone on the rampage and greatly embarrassed their own party’s governments in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Surely they cannot be interested in the breakdown of law and order there.
The hijacking incident falls in a different category. The two young men doubtless put the passengers to a great deal of inconvenience and caused no small amount of concern among the officials in charge of security arrangements at different airports and elsewhere. But it will not be surprising if it turns out that while they chose a most dramatic and deplorable form of protest, they did not at any stage wish to harm the passengers or damage the aircraft. They are said to have been armed with nothing more lethal than cricket balls and toy guns and they did not take much time to surrender to the U.P. chief minister once he had flown to Varanasi where the plane had landed under the orders of the hijackers. It will be ridiculous to dismiss the sorry episode as a joke. The incident was not a lark and should not be treated as such. But it should not be blown out of proportion either. Meanwhile the Prime Minister has done well to scotch the rumour that the prorogation of Parliament would be delayed in order to keep Mrs. Gandhi in jail much beyond the date when Parliament adjourns. He should also make a categorical statement that he will not countenance any move to disenfranchise Mrs. Gandhi on one pretext or another.