149. Memorandum From Secretary of State Vance to President Carter1
[Omitted here is material unrelated to India.]
6. Charan Singh to become India’s Fifth Prime Minister: Charan Singh is scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow afternoon as Prime Minister of India.2 His coalition government is shaky, however, and India probably will face general elections before spring.
Earlier this week, Indian President Reddy asked both Singh and Morarji Desai to submit lists of Parliament members who supported them. When Desai could not command a majority, he resigned as leader of the Janata Party and said he would retire from political life. Former [Page 399] Defense Minister Jagjivan Ram has been chosen as the new Janata Party leader.
Singh is considered an ardent nationalist but is not expected to focus a great deal of attention on foreign affairs. There may be some improvement in India’s relations with the Soviet Union. On nuclear issues, Singh probably does not share Desai’s moral aversion to nuclear weapons and may move back to a policy which keeps India’s nuclear options open.
[Omitted here is material unrelated to India.]
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Box 22, Evening Reports (State): 7/79. Secret. Carter wrote “Cy” and initialed at the top of the memorandum.↩
- Telegram 12820 from New Delhi, July 22, reported: “Not surprisingly, Congress leader Y.B. Chavan has failed in his bid to form a new government. His party has declared its support for Chaudhury Charan Singh’s candidacy, but left it deliberately ambiguous what form this support would take. The impasse over the leadership of the Janata parliamentary party continues. President Reddy is receiving conflicting advice about what to do next. Charan Singh thinks that he deserves to be called. The Janata argument is that now that the leader of the opposition has failed, the President should turn back to Janata as the largest party in the Lok Sabha. The President would obviously be happier if he could turn to someone other than Desai as Janata leader, but the Prime Minister’s supporters continue to argue that there is substantial constitutional precedent for Morarji to be called even though he was obliged to resign as PM in anticipation of a no-confidence vote defeat.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790344–0117)↩