cratic-Marxist-especially in his effort to inform world public opinion about massacre in East Pakistan and to advocate the independence of Bangladesh. I saw J. P. at the zenith of his career at Patna in March 1975 and on his sickbed at Bombay last January.

I last visited India for a short period in December 1975 and January of this year, after the emergency was declared. Finally, I am acting chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Human Rights in India, with headquarters in New York City. Beyond my interests in India, I am a Unitarian Universalist clergyman and, since 1970, have been Secretary General of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, an international nongovernmental organization in a consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. However, I give this testimony in my personal capacity.

During this brief oral testimony on human rights in India, I would like to attempt to answer five questions. And the first question is to what degree have human rights in India-called fundamental rights in the Indian Constitution-eroded since the emergency was declared on June 26-1 year ago Saturday?

Mr. Chairman, when I returned from India in January, I wrote an extensive memorandum on this topic which, somewhat updated, I would like to place in the record of these hearings as exhibit 1.1 Let me outline this material very briefly. I believe, Mr. Chairman, you have a copy of this exhibit 1.

The declaration of the emergency by the President of India on June 26, 1975, was preceeded by events of several years, and I present a chronology in section 1 of the exhibit. The most recent date is June 16-when the Government of India extended for 1 year its right to hold political prisoners without trial or formal charges. The emergency decree itself was all very legal, and I discuss that at some length in section 2. However, the emergency cannot be separated from Mrs. Indira Gandhi's own emergency, her conviction on June 12, 1975, of two charges under the Indian election laws, and I discuss this situation in section 3. There are some parallels between the predicament of Richard Nixon and Indira Gandhi. Both were involved with minor infringements of the law which symbolized their far greater misunderstanding of the essence of their respective political traditions. Both Nixon and Gandhi sadly identified-almost using the same accents their personal future with that of their nation. However, Mrs. Gandhi was a far better politician in her ability to survive; or, perceived in another manner, the American people were far more jealous of their prerogatives and far less able to be manipulated than the Indian people.

A week after the emergency was declared, on July 1, 1975, Mrs. Gandhi promulgated her 20-point economic program, and I give the outline of that in section 4. The emergency, and its aftermath, is a complex political phenomena for India and it cannot be regarded in simplistic terms. Some of its effects, including that of the 20-point program, were positive. I can only list some of the positive aspects: more discipline, less corruption including fewer economic offenses, less inflation, and lower prices. I discuss these at some length in section 5 of appendix 1. I would warn, however, that the discipline is external,

1 See exhibits in appendix 1, p. 177.

based on fear, not internal, that corruption continues but may be more expensive, and that what economic indices are rising are the result of many factors, including good weather, and thus it is difficult to determine how much is due to the emergency.

I turn now to the legal erosion of fundamental rights. In section 6 I provide a list of some of the legal measures taken to whittle away human rights. In section 7 I discuss the problem of political prisoners and make a conservative estimate of at least 50,000. One should not be conservative, however, in reflecting evidences of torture, and later I will put into the record of this hearing several documents in this regard. In section 8 I discuss press censorship. In section 9 I discuss the postponement of national elections earlier this year and other problems facing the Indian Parliament. In section 10 I discuss surveillance and fear which is pervasive in India today. In section 11, I discuss the lessening of the rights of workers. The rest of the paper deals principally with the opposition and other efforts to oppose the growing totalitarianism. Appendix A contains a discussion on "Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution." Efforts are continuing to amend the Constitution, but perhaps not as drastically in its human rights provisions as originally feared.

Mr. Chairman, this is all that I will discuss about the anatomy of the situation in India today unless it is your pleasure now for me to go into greater detail in this exhibit 1, but this is for the record as far as I am concerned. Should I go on?

Mr. FRASER. I am not sure I understand what you are proposing? Mr. JACK. I tried very quickly to put into the record this exhibit 1, which gives the situation in India.

Mr. FRASER. We will incorporate all of exhibit 1 in the record. Mr. JACK. Now I will be discussing other questions relating to this in terms of American policy.

I turn now to the second question, which was asked specifically by the chairman of this subcommittee in a letter inviting me to this hearing. To what extent has the emergency been necessary or desirable in terms of bringing about social and economic reforms? Mrs. Gandhi was in power for almost 10 years before the emergency was declared. After the 1971 war with Pakistan, and especially from 1972 onward, she had the good will of the Indian people and of much of the world. She possessed large political majorities. Yet the inertia and the corruption of the ruling Congress Party, under the undisputed leadership of Mrs. Gandhi, led to the all-party movement of J. P. Narayan and others in 1974 and 1975 to get India moving. Whatever prevented Mrs. Gandhi's leadership in social and economic reform was not due to any great interference with existing government programs on the part of the Indian people through the use or abuse of their civil liberties. Her leadership was weak; the corruption was great.

While Mrs. Gandhi and her government have leaned on any excuse to explain the emergency, they have most often perhaps used the rationale of needing stability. They argue that the country was falling apart and such Draconian measures as the emergency were needed to keep India together. India was falling apart, admittedly, but not because of opposition to any social and economic reforms initiated by

Mrs. Gandhi and her party. It was falling apart because few significant social programs were in operation.

My own opinion is that the emergency so far has only marginally aided social and economic reform. Few of the 20 economic and social programs are new, but they are being more carefully implemented, both by the central government and the states-and today the Congress Party controls all the states. But few feel that, because of the emergency, there is a new spirit, a new dynamism in India today. At least there was none when I visited New Delhi and Bombay in January. What is desperately needed in India is the spirit which Gandhi provided for the freedom movement and the program which Nehru provided for the early, heady years of freedom. They provided both spirit and program. But these are both lacking-even with the emergency in effect.

Some Indians, and some visitors to India, will exude a the-trainsnow-run-on-time attitude. We heard that before, on another continent in another generation. The admitted recent infusion of discipline in India should not be confused with a more dynamic society. There is none in India today.

Third, how should the U.S. Government react to the erosion of human rights in India today? India is not just one nation among many. It is the second largest nation in the world and a leader of the Third World. It is indeed one of the great nations and people of the entire world.

There are some Americans who genuinely believe that we, as an American people and Government, should do nothing about what is happening in India today. What India does is her business and none of our business. This is a claim both of isolationists and the new, liberal neo-isolationists. After United States intervention of various kinds in Vietnam and Chile, we should learn-however belatedlythat we have enough to do here at home and should not judge other countries, let alone try to change their ways of governance. I would submit that this is not the lesson of Vietnam or Chile. We Americans must be concerned about what is happening in the world around us. We Americans, officially and unofficially, must make political judgments and speak out. How we act, officially or unofficially, beyond rhetoricthat is another problem. Thus I would first insist that we Americans have a right and a duty to react to problems anywhere in this shrinking world, doubly so perhaps in the field of human rights.

Thus, I believe that the United States should, initially, at least speak out in world forums against the loss of civil liberties in India. I am glad that the United States has begun to find its voice, and conscience, beginning once again to condemn its friends, its allies, its adversaries, any nation in the world community which is flaunting the standards enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We must speak out-the President, the Secretary of State, the Congress and there is no more appropriate time to do so than in our own Bicentennial Year. Speaking out constitutes pressure of world public opinion and the effect of this even on the most tyrannical of regimes should not be discounted. And Mrs. Gandhi's is by no means the most tyrannical today.

What should the United States do, about growing Indian totalitarianism, at the United Nations in the context of the protection of

human rights-and thus on a multilateral level? The United States has recently criticized, and rightly so, the U.N. system for giving selective attention to human rights. The United Nation criticizes human rights violations in South Africa, Chile, and Israel, but never in the Soviet Union, South Korea, or Uganda. Perhaps the United Nations can be more universal in its action on violations of human rights if it added more countries to its list-including India.

There are at least two routes to publicize violations of human rights in the U.N. system. One is by resolution in the General Assembly or the Economic and Social Council, or its subsidiary bodies. Another is by action on communications which reveal a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights. The latter is a much slower and more complicated procedure. I would recommend that the United States not mount a vendetta at the United Nations against India, but sound out other states about the possibility of proposing a General Assembly resolution condemning violations of human rights in India. Given the configuration of political forces in the United Nations today, such an initiative would stand no chance of success, but serious diplomatic efforts toward this end would be useful-back in New Delhi.

As for using the procedures of the Economic and Social Council, at least two nongovernmental organizations-the International League for Human Rights and Indians for Democracy-have submitted within the past month, two long-documented communications on torture and other violations of human rights in India. Since an independent American expert is a member of the working group of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities-the first level of the long screening process-I would encourage this U.S. expert-although not a governmental representative, he is in fact a foreign service officer-to look at the evidence carefully. Some of the serious allegations of torture in India today submitted to the United Nations through the two nongovernmental organizations I would like to submit, Mr. Chairman, as exhibit 2. Mr. FRASER. Without objection, we will include that in the record. Mr. JACK. Another level which the United States can use with many nations is military aid. However, we do not now grant or sell conventional arms to India. There is no evidence that India now or in the near future will want such arms and, in any case, there is no reason for us to resume such grants or sales. Indeed, we should reduce much more drastically such grants and sales of conventional arms to all nations than the recent ceilings allowed in the new military aid legislation. We could begin by cutting off all arms to Pakistan. If we were granting or selling conventional arms to India, I would hope such grants or aid would be terminated in conformity to the new legislation-which is in the final stages of passage or has just been passed, and hopefully will not again be vetoed. This refers to governments found to engage in a "consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." Either House of Congress may request the President to furnish a report setting forth all the available information about the observance of human rights in any specified country receiving such military assistance. Then both Houses of Con

gress may adopt a concurrent resolution which could require a termination of security assistance to such a country. This is important new legislation, but it is not now applicable as far as India is concerned because the United States gives no military assistance whatsoever to India.

One type of quasi-military aid being given or sold by the United States to India is nuclear expertise, machinery, and fuels, including uranium and heavy water. Given India's decision in 1973 to go nuclear-whatever India's own description of her nuclear pregnancyI think all U.S. nuclear aid of whatever sort to India should cease, as Canada rightly if belatedly ceased her nuclear aid to India some weeks ago. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently deciding whether to permit export of 40,000 pounds of uranium to India. This should be denied, for reasons of arresting nuclear proliferation, which is as crucial to human survival as arresting totalitarian proliferation. What other concrete levers are available to U.S. policymakers? The most obvious is food aid. We Americans are now shipping many millions of dollars and tons of food grains to India, even though at the moment the grain harvest in India is abundant. There will undoubtedly be periods in the near future when we must again ship even much larger amounts of food to India. We should do so willingly, eagerly-whatever the state of human rights in India. Food should never be used as a political weapon-against any regime, against any people, including our own American poor. The prompt adoption by Congress of the pending concurrent resolutions declaring as national policy the right to food could help insure policy for a continuing flow of food to India and other needy countries.

What about economic aid to India? In March, it was announced here in Washington that the Ford administration was breaking off the embryonic negotiations with India for bilateral economic aid because Mrs. Gandhi sharply criticized some things American. At the time I sent a letter of protest to Secretary Henry Kissinger and received a reply from Adolph Dubs of the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. He denied that talks were "broken off," but said that they were merely postponed; he also denied that "to defer talks on economic aid" is a "policy of 'economic reprisal."" He did write, however, that "recent unfounded remarks by high Indian Government leaders which were critical of the United States, have perplexed us and let us to conclude that caution is necessary regarding the pursuit of some programs which require that mutual trust and confidence exist between us before they can be carried out successfully." This finelywrought sentence confirmed widespread fears that the United States apparently operates on pique-hurt pride-but I would hope that pique would not be decisive in American policy formulation, either in the administration or here in Congress. I would hope that this administration would, in earnest, begin again to negotiate broad economic and social aid to the Indian people, as much through multilateral agencies as possible, but also some bilateral aid in the near future. India is one of the most severely affected nations, especially because of the fuel and monetary crises of the 1970's. India needs and deserves all the economic aid she can find anywhere in the First and Second Worlds.