And from the viewpoint of several officials, there was a feeling long before the emergency was imposed that the government was becoming incapable of coping with monumental tasks that it had before it. Trade unions were resorting to violence, there was obstructionism in the Parliament, and there was a threat of a railway strike, which could have paralyzed the country completely. And as officials looked at internal events, they began to wonder whether the Westminster parliamentary system was suitable to India.

But the important point they made was, and I think the Prime Minister herself has said this on occasion, that India is such a tremendous land in its diversity, that no one could see any other system as being more suitable to the resolution of India's problems than the democratic system.

In other words, these escape valves, which a democratic system provides, had to remain open-whether the escape valve is a trade union movement, whether it is the press, whether it is Parliament, whether it is the action of youth groups and so on.

So there was a realization that India, with its tremendous diversity, had to permit these escape valves to remain in play. And the point was repeatedly made to me that these were actions of a temporary nature and their was no doubt in the minds of these officials that the emergency would sooner or later be lifted.

I have given you this background to underline the depressed feeling that I detected among officials over the inability of the system, as devised, to cope with monumental problems, and that perhaps what was in order was deeper consideration as to whether any constitutional changes were required to give central authority more power to do certain things.

Mr. FRASER. Have events borne out the view of these officials that this was going to be a temporary emergency?

Mr. DUBS. The emergency has not been lifted as yet, and we have had no indication or sign of when it might be.

Mr. FRASER. The constitutional changes that are restricting the authority of the judiciary, they are not tied to the emergency, are they?

Mr. DUBS. I think they are in a way, but it probably goes beyond finding what some Indians consider to be a more appropriate role for the judiciary.

Mr. FRASER. What I mean by that was the lifting of the emergency proclamation would not automatically reverse these constitutional changes?

Mr. DUBS. Would not automatically reverse, no, sir, as I read the situation.

Mr. FRASER. Was putting parliamentarians in jail apparently essential to control, to regain the authority the government may have needed?

Mr. DUBS. Presumably, Mr. Chairman, the Prime Minister included

Mr. FRASER. They got control of the Parliament by rather substantial numbers. I think we had some evidence of torture there as well.

Mr. DUBS. We have heard allegations of torture, Mr. Chairman, but we have no confirmation of torture, actual acts of torture.

Mr. FRASER. Mr. Dubs, we never do. There is no country in the world that practices torture, according to the Department of State. Mr. DUBS. But Indian officials themselves have said any allegations of torture will be investigated and that anyone found guilty of acts of torture will be prosecuted.

Mr. FRASER. Have there been any prosecutions?

Mr. DUBS. We have no evidence of anyone being prosecuted for acts of torture.

Mr. FRASER. I think the point of this hearing in part, of course, is to see whether any changes in the political system in India should be reflected in our bilateral relations with India, and I gather that both of you believe that because of the enormous population of India, the low per capita income, and the importance of economic progress in India that we should look favorably, not only on a continuation of our aid-which I gather is modest-but perhaps we should give favorable consideration to increase the bilateral aid.

Mr. GARDINER. I think that would be a fair statement, Mr. Chairman. I want to make clear that the judgment to increase and to resume a bilateral relation has not been made. It will be made in light of all the circumstances.

If I might just supplement that a bit. We believe the right-to-food resolution, which has been working its way through the House and the Senate in the past 2 months, states in a very eloquent way the fundamental reason why the issue of an increased aid level is reasonable and ought to come to people's attention because certainly a major part of the overall food problem in the world exists in the subcontinent of India itself.

Mr. FRASER. We have not had a significant bilateral program other than the title II, the humanitarian aid.

Mr. GARDINER. That is correct, sir.

Mr. FRASER. Since?

Mr. GARDINER. 1971.

Mr. FRASER. To what extent has the interruption of more aid programs been attributable to the position of the Indian Government? To what extent has it been our decision?

Mr. GARDINER. That is an extremely difficult question to answer. I think that viewed from the perspective of AID, as the development assistance agency, we have been looking for an occasion in which the overall relationships between India and the United States are such that a cooperative development dialog could be resumed.

Mr. FRASER. We have been looking for that?

Mr. GARDINER. We have been in the posture for the last year of looking at that possibility in serious terms. I think Mr. Dubs would like to supplement this.

Mr. DUBS. I think, Mr. Chairman, both sides have recognized that any reinstitution of a bilateral aid program would have to be mutually acceptable. I think there is a general recognition, perhaps, that the donor-recipient relationship can often lead to exaggerated expectations on both sides and that this perhaps happened in the past. And the question no longer arises of providing the magnitude of assistance that we offered to India in the past. But doing something in terms of helping the Indians through joint cooperative efforts to come to grips with some of their development problems especially in the

field of agriculture might be considered, but it will take agreement from both sides to move forward.

It may be absent one time on the Indian side. It may be absent at another time on the U.S. side, but we are open should the conditions be right to considering the institution of such a program with, of course, congressional approval.

Mr. FRASER. In determining when the conditions are right, are political trends in India likely to be given any weight?

Mr. DUBS. I do not think they can be ignored, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FRASER. We had a meeting this morning with some representatives of the European Parliament including the President of the European Parliament. He was pointing out that when Greece came under the control of the Greek junta, the European Community suspended the membership of Greece in the Community. He also, of course, indicated the strong position they had taken against the admission of Spain in the Community, absent democratic institutions.

I think they also recited the fact that Uruguay, in seeking improved relations to create access to the community, had been turned down on the grounds of the rather serious human rights situation in Uruguay. That is their general approach.

What I am hearing this afternoon is that the U.S. general approach is when a country has, in effect, abolished many of the important protections for individual rights in a country, they suddenly come up to be rewarded that may be the wrong term-but now they are going to become eligible for the first time in 5 or 6 years for an enlarged bilateral aid program. We certainly seem to have a different perception of our relationship with countries than our European friends.

Mr. DUBS. I want to assure you, Mr. Chairman, that the observation of human rights in any individual country, including India, will be taken into account as we formulate various aspects of our bilateral relations. We think the observance of human rights, the implementation of those rights is a very important element in the execution of our foreign policy. I just wanted to assure you as the chairman of this subcommittee that we will not ignore developments in India as we think about future bilateral programs.

Mr. GARDINER. I would also like to point out one of the compelling, affirmative considerations that will be involved in this decision. That is the fact that in the legislative scheme, as we understand it now, there is congressional understanding and, indeed, endorsement, of the type of AID programs which effectively reach the poor people in the country. To the extent that these programs can be so designed, they are an exception to the limitations.

Mr. FRASER. I agree. The Harkin amendment said no aid to countries guilty of a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights unless it reaches the needy. In effect, we said if it reaches the needy then that injunction does not apply. And AID, as I understand it, indicating its total commitment to the new directions in foreign aid believe that all of its programs is needy. So by definition, you are not encumbered with the Harkin amendment.

Mr. GARDINER. I do not think AID would take that broad a position. But I do think most of the things we are doing fall under the exception.

76-718-76-11

Mr. FRASER. I do not want to pursue this at too great length, but this illustrates the difficulty of Congress in terms of setting policy guidance. Congress cannot very well write into legislation the subtleties that I think ought to be a part of the arsenal of the executive branch in advancing human rights along with other U.S. interests. And when you have had a period of interruption of bilateral aid except for the title II, you then go up to bat for an increased bilateral aid right at the time when India seems to be departing ever further from democratic forms, it can only send one kind of signal.

To be honest with you, I thought once India declared the state of emergency, you would probably be in here with a military aid program for them.

Mr. DUBS. I just want to repeat, Mr. Chairman, that no decision has been made. There is a provisional figure but this makes no prejudgments about what the actual decision is going to be.

Mr. FRASER. We were talking in the same meeting with the European Parliamentarians, of the need for parliamentarians to form a union. If we cannot do anything else, maybe we can protect each other. I think starting a new aid program while these people are in jail would be a tragedy or something.

Mr. SMEETON. I do not know if either one of you gentlemen has had an opportunity to read a report of a trip to India taken earlier this year by Mr. Francis Valeo, Secretary of the U.S. Senate.

You have, Mr. Dubs?

Mr. DUBS. Yes.

Mr. SMEETON. In that report he indicates that the emergency seems to be much more widely disapproved abroad, particularly in the United States, than it is in India. I wonder if that corresponds with your own observations and impressions, or with the reporting you are getting from the field?

Mr. DUBS. I think that is a very valid comment by Frank Valeo, and I must say during my own trip to India, and I tried to get away from the bureaucracy and officials to ascertain for myself what the reaction was down below. I encountered no fears, resistance to the declaration of the emergency.

Now, to be sure, my own personal sampling was very limited. But you discern how people go about their business, the looks on their faces, how they look when they go to the marketplace, what their priorities are as they speak to you. It is a very perceptive report, I think.

Mr. SMEETON. Some other observers have claimed that the emergency action was taken so swiftly and the blackout of newspapers was so thorough that many of the people living in the villages to this day are not aware of what took place a year ago. Is that a little exaggerated?

Mr. DUBS. I think that could well be. I am not that familiar with life in one of India's 500,000 remote villages. But I would imagine the primary concern in some of these remote villages is survival, having enough food for the family. The price of foodgrains, for instance, is another concern.

Mr. SMEETON. In another part of the same report by Mr. Valeo, he made the observation that there is tremendous pressure for change in India, and it has got to be confronted. He went on to add, and I believe that I am quoting him correctly, that:

If it cannot be met under existing political structure, then there is a strong possibility an entirely new mechanism will emerge and not necessarily by the process of peaceful evolution.

Given such a backdrop, can you conceive of any circumstances in which the military might intervene and try its hand at running the country?

Mr. DUBS. The military tradition in India has been to be apolitical. And as far as we can ascertain, they have had no part in any acts of repression under the emergency. And my own impression from talking to military officers in India is that they certainly would like to keep it that way.

Mr. SMEETON. Is it true that the Indian Border Security Force, that was created in 1962 after the conflict with the Chinese, to patrol and guard the border between the two countries has been used of late more as a paramilitary force to maintain internal security? Is there any indication this is happening?

Mr. DUBS. Not to my knowledge.

Mr. Kux. I am not aware.

Mr. DUBS. Neither of us is aware.

Mr. SMEETON. Is it possible that the present Indian emergency is the logical culmination of a process that has been at work in India since it achieved independence?

Mr. DUBS. I do not know whether it is the logical outcome of a process that has been going on, but it has been part of that search, I think, for a structure, a mechanism, a domestic evolution which will permit the Indian Government to cope more effectively with its problems. I am not making any judgment in saying these things. I think the process of thinking through whether a parliamentary system can be totally effective in an environment such as India's is complicated and troublesome. The deep philosophical questions this poses shattered my mind as I tried to think through why the democratic process, as we know it, has not been totally effective in grappling with these problems. And I must admit, Mr. Chairman, I have no answers. But it is puzzling when we begin to think how as a nation of 600 million people India is to be governed effectively to insure that each individual enjoys social, economic, and political justice. And if the population growth continues by the turn of the century, India will have 1 billion souls within its territory.

As a matter of interest in this connection, when I first went to the South Asian area to take over, I made a visit to a facility that AID has, and it encompassed a computer which is tied into a facility at the University of Illinois. I asked as a matter of interest to project for me, all other things being equal, the population growth in China and in India over the next 50 years. And low and behold somewhere around the year 2012 or perhaps a little bit beyond, India is going to overtake China in its population size. This does, as you can imagine, pose a good number of questions in my mind about the problems that lie ahead for India.

Obviously, anyone who has lived under a democratic system but who has also served in a place like the Soviet Union for 4 years has had to hope that the democratic process will be resumed, with all its weaknesses, but also with all of its splendor, in resolving these fierce human problems.