NEHRU'S DAUGHTER MAY INHERIT, WITH MENON UNCLIPSED

Summary

This two-page New York Herald Tribune article, dated October 20, 1963, reports speculation that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru may be preparing his daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, to succeed him. The article presents the succession question primarily through Nehru’s relationship with Defence Minister V. K. Krishna Menon, arguing that retaining Menon’s influence after Nehru leaves office may explain the reported preference for Indira Gandhi. It also places this possibility against a recent Cabinet reshuffle and the perceived opposition of Morarji Desai, Lal Bahadur Shastri, and S. K. Patil to Nehru’s socialist programme, especially land reform.

Key points

• The article reports an unconfirmed but supposedly well-informed belief that Nehru favours Indira Gandhi as his successor.
• It interprets the proposed succession as a means of preserving Krishna Menon’s influence over Indian domestic and foreign policy.
• It describes Menon as unacceptable to the Congress Party as a future prime minister despite his close relationship with Nehru.
• It recounts Menon’s political decline after India’s 1962 military reverses against Communist China and his removal from the Defence Ministry.
• It portrays Indira Gandhi as a long-standing political associate of Menon and as someone who publicly defended him.
• It concludes that the central question is whether Nehru will risk imposing his daughter as successor at a critical moment in India’s history.