Indian Speakers Predict Stable Shastri Regime

The chief whip for the State Congress Legislative Party maintained Wednesday that India can survive, even after Nehru's death.

P. Ramachandran in the first international Seminar panel discussion. "India after Nehru", said that although it may not be possible for Prime Minister Shastri to rise up to Nehru's personal level of statesmanship, the Party is trying to form a collective leadership to equal their former leader's strength.

Gafoor Noorani, an advocate in the Bombay high court, added that the philosophy of non-alignment embraced by Nehru is so deeply ingrained that a successor could not change it. Nehru did not create this philosophy, he said, but molded the Indian people's adherence to it.

Sunanda Kisor Datta-Ray, assistant editor of The Statesman, suggested that the existing power split between the traditionalists and Anglo-Indians may diminish the influence of Nehru's successor. Because Shastri embraces Indian tradition, he is not unanimously supported by the rest of the government and party. Presently, the stronger influence upon the Indian people decidedly is Western, rather than traditional: to be Westernized is a status symbol.

The second section of the seminar discussed "New Directions in Britain."

Geoffrey Goodman, industrial correspondent of the Daily Herald, maintained that readjustment to a less important role in world affairs is one of the chief problems of modern England. Until the cancellation of an English invasion of the Suez Canal Zone in 1956 because of lack of power. Britain felt that her important world position had not changed. Readjustment is a problem, Goodman said, but at least the problem is recognized.