Past the cliff's edge

THIS is the way democracy ends, it seems—with a few scattered whimpers. And this is one of the most unsettling aspects of a deeply disturbing week in India: the sheer ease with which 28 years of accumulated rights, habits and traditions have been swept away. On June 25th India had a lively, if lopsided, multi-party system and a free, if occasionally bullied, press. On June 26th hundreds of politicians from all parties except the dogmatically pro-Gandhi Communists had been jailed along with hundreds of still unidentified others and the press had been gagged. Each day then brought a new decree and a tighter clampdown: the suspension of habeas corpus and other constitutionally protected rights; rules for press censorship which made hostages of foreign correspondents working in India and puppets or mutes of local journalists; a modification of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act to remove a prisoner's right to hear the charges against him; more and more arrests, until the government spokesman stopped counting at over 1,000; and then on Tuesday a packet of economic goodies designed to win back hearts, minds and bellies and to sustain the claim that the whole emergency operation had been aimed at something more than keeping Mrs Indira Gandhi, India's prime minister, in power.