Newsnight presented by Donald MacCormick with Steve Bradshaw and Mark Tully in New Delhi. Interview with former British PM, Jim Callaghan. Panel discussion with Vinod Mehta, Editor, Sunday Observer, Bombay; Neville Maxwell, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Oxford University.

“Looting, shooting and burning swept across India despite a fresh appeal for sanity and harmony by the new Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi’s son Rajiv, nearly 150 have been killed and about a thousand have been injured in the turmoil, triggered off by Hindu rioters seeking revenge for Mrs. Gandhi’s murder by two of her Sikh security guards yesterday. In one incident, twelve passengers were reported to have been dragged out of a train and clubbed to death. Here the Foreign Office has warned British travellers not to go to India for the present.

But in Britain, there’s also been one sign of reconciliation after yesterday’s celebration of the assassination by some Sikhs. Today in Cardiff, Hindus and Sikhs prayed together in mourning Mrs. Gandhi.

Today’s violence has cut a swathe right across central and northern India and tonight twenty-three towns and cities, in addition to New Delhi itself, are under curfew. But it’s the capital that has been worst hit of all, as Steve Bradshaw now reports.

It was supposed to be a day of mourning. In Delhi and throughout India shops, schools and offices closed. Some of the most bustling cities in the world seemed more like ghost towns. But soon it became apparent that many people were staying indoors, not only for respect for Mrs. Gandhi, but from fear. Fear that resentment against the Sikh community could lead to violence.

In Delhi, as elsewhere, the Sikhs themselves were only too conscious that the assassins came from their community. As they congregated around their temples, some were well prepared for the possibility of reprisals. In Delhi and several other cities of the north, those fears were justified.

Taxes became a particular target since many are owned by Sikhs. The pattern was repeated across the north, despite warnings from Mrs. Gandhi’s own party and the opposition leaders, that violence would help no one. There’s no accurate death toll for the day’s troubles but it seems likely that over 70 people may have died, some by stabbing others caught in police fire. One victim reportedly burnt to death.

Former Prime Minister James Callaghan was in Calcutta when Mrs. Gandhi died. Tonight, he reached Delhi, in the midst of a curfew.

“There is a feeling of uncertainty, a slightly eerie feeling about the empty streets and there is, I think some danger here that I hope and sure the police will do their best to contain. What India needs at the moment is unity and harmony not revenge.”

What is the reason for this tension? What’s your analysis of what has happened?

Well, the reason, the approximate reason is of course what has happened in recent months and weeks with the Sikhs. When Mrs. Gandhi very properly took action that had to be taken if law and order was to be maintained in the country and it wasn’t just to degenerate into anarchy.

Former UK Prime Minister, James Callaghan

As Mrs. Gandhi lay in state today, by her side was the son who has now taken over the mantle of power. Rajiv Gandhi is not an experienced politician. His formal training is as an airline pilot. The need to stem the violence will be a unique test of whether he has inherited his mother’s political skills.

The real essence of Mrs Gandhi is that for 20 years she was the focus of politics in this country and everything revolved around her. She had a tendency to create a situation in which those who did not agree with her were not in her cabinet. I think now there’s a possibility of some regrouping taking place and in that case, India could be stronger. And that’s what I certainly hope.

Tonight, the streets of Delhi were empty. There was no transport. The city seemed in the grip of something more critical than a simple period of mourning. There’s some anxiety about when the markets will reopen, and now, long after midnight here, disturbing rumours are still circulating about the activities of sectarian extremists.

The curfew, which is enforced not only in parts of Delhi but in some thirty other towns, does seem to have quelled the violence for the moment. But there’s still deep concern here about what the morning may bring and about whether the police and army will be drafted into the capital in increasing numbers, can keep control of what’s in danger of becoming a tide of sectarian violence.

And since receiving that report by Steve Bradshaw, we have heard, of course, that the death toll has now risen to about 150. But given the new Prime Minister’s broadcast appeal last night for calm and restraint, was the scale and sweep of today’s violence expected?

I put that question earlier to Mark Tully in New Delhi.

Senior official today said that it was expected. But if it was expected, then there is no explanation for the lamentable lack of policing in the capital, Delhi today.

Mark Tully, BBC

It’s really wrong, Donald, to see this as just anger against the killing of Mrs Gandhi. A lot of it was pure hooliganism, looting and arson, and a lot of it wasn’t even directed directly against the Sikhs. It was just attacking any shop which the hooligans could get hold of.

So the violence doesn’t appear to be organised in any way, then?

No, it was impossible to trace any political hand behind it. And looking at the young men who were roaming the streets, they certainly didn’t appear to be organised. They were just small bands of people roaming around the place looking for trouble.

I suppose it’s just possible, Mark, to regard this upon absence of political motivation for the violence as a good omen, in a way, for Mr Gandhi’s premiership.

Well, I think it’s a good omen in one way and it certainly shows responsibility by the opposition parties too. But I think what is a bad omen, or what certainly one hopes will not be repeated, is that the government must firmly establish the fact that it is governing the country. And what happened today in Delhi certainly left some doubts about that.

With me now, are two eminent writers on Indian politics Neville Maxwell and Vinod Mehta. First of all, Mr. Mehta, do you think that tomorrow the authorities will get control of the situation in Delhi in particular?

One cannot say, but I think a certain amount of reprisal was to be expected. And although I deplore the reprisals on the Sikhs, I think much of the violence has the Sikhs have been on the receiving end of this, I’m sure, although no figures are there. I deplore this violence and I hope that this act of madness will not be seen as an act perpetrated by the Sikh community. The army has got to be brought in and I’m not sure I’m here in London. I don’t know whether the army is there. I believe the army and the police are working in concert.

Unfortunately, the police in India doesn’t have a very credible image. The only law and order force which can ensure civic peace in India is the army and I think that the army should be given complete control.

Mr. Maxwell, were you at all reassured by hearing Mark Tully say that in all this mayhem there is an element of hooliganism present?

Not reassured at all. One would expect it when you get rioting in the streets. Every gunda, every local thug is going to get in on the act but I’m not quite sure what light that throws on it. You’ve got a communal convulsion in India with revenge attacks on the Sikhs. But surely what is far more important is how the political institutions of India, like the army are going to take the shock of this convulsion.

If Mark Tully is right in saying that it seems to be the case today that the authorities were standing back. Why do you think that might have been?

Well, I don’t think they would have been standing back. We’re not there. And Mark Tully is. But there would have been an instant realisation by all the law and order enforcement authorities, particularly the army, that they would have had to deal with an instant conflagration and the tactics they would have used to deal with it come from decades and generations of practical experience. They may have got it slightly wrong, but again, how they’re handling this? This is a fire brigade question, the fundamental questions that surely it is time now to consider what is going to happen to the institutions of governance in India. It’s not a question of rioting and.

That on the institution of the army which you introduced the conversation. How trustworthy an agent of law and order is the army given, for example, in this period of racial tension, given the presence in the army of a large number of Sikhs?

Well, I don’t think the presence of Sikhs makes any difference. The army in India is the envy of the Third World. I think time and again it has proved that it gets involved in certain civic disturbances and it goes back to the barracks. I think what has happened is that the police has lost its credibility because in certain other communal conflagrations it has not performed particularly well. But can I just come back to this point of hooliganism? I do want to say something about that. It is possible that as a tactic, the government may have decided for a day or two to allow the people in Delhi in particular, to let out their fury, to go on the streets, to perhaps rampage, because this is a traumatic event for Hindus.

In Punjab, they have taken a great deal and I believe they’ve behaved with great tolerance in the face of grave provocations. And I was very dismayed yesterday to see some of the happenings in Southall.

And if I might make an appeal to my Sikh friends here, that this popping of champagne bottles and this dancing on the streets. I understand their feelings, but they also owe a responsibility to 13 million of their brothers and sisters in the Punjab.

Vinod Mehta, Editor, Sunday Observer, Bombay

Mr. Maxwell, what is the answer, or at least the beginnings of the answer to your own question? I mean, can the institutions survive the present stresses and strains?

Well, they’re in bad shape and I think that now that the period of shock at Mrs. Gandhi’s murder is receding at least by 24 hours, it’s time to assess the Indira bequest and she’s left these fundamental institutions in poor shape. What are these institutions? The Congress Party. Well, I would argue that it doesn’t exist anymore. You’ve got fragmented parties, all of them claiming to be Congress. Each identified by the name of its leader, the Congress I, the Congress Indira. That’s in poor shape and my own view would be to expect a process of fragmentation to work again within that.

What about the army and fragmentation there?

I wouldn’t agree with Mr. Mehta. I think that the army is always unhappy to find itself in a law and order enforcement role working against a civilian population. It is already massively deployed across India, not only in the Punjab but in the northeast. And this must put a strain upon its reserves and its attitudes, particularly as such, a large proportion of its forces are in fact Sikh. And with the trusted personal bodyguard of Mrs. Gandhi showing that his loyalty lay to his religion and not to his salt, so to speak, what Hindu officer can now be confident that his Sikhs are going to remain loyal troops?

And do you think finally, that we are on the brink, as Steve Bradshaw suggested we might be in India of even greater racial violence?

I would expect that this communal flare up of violence to be contained by massive use of the army.”

Aftermath of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination, Steve Bradshaw and Mark Tully reporting from New Delhi, including Newsnight panel discussion.