Prof to Return to India, Will Start Political Party

A visiting professor of economics will return to his native India next month to coordinate a national coalition party opposing what he terms Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's "all promise and no performance" regime.

Subramanian Swamy, a 15-year veteran of the Indian Parliament and a self-proclaimed "principal opponent" to Indira Gandhi, said he will pass up Harvard's indefinite offer to teach because the slain leader's son "has failed to bring about a change in the country."

Losing Popularity

"There is discontent, no doubt about it," said Swamy. He said that although Gandhi "enjoys a huge majority" of political support in parliament, he has recently lost the backing of 12 of 24 provinces in popular elections.

Swamy came to Harvard this year as a visting professor, but he has had a long-time association with the University as a graduate student and as an assistant and associate professor. He has also taught in the Harvard Summer School.

In returning to New Delhi, Swamy said he hopes to "coalesce the fragments" of the opposition into a "democratic, right-of-center coalition party. My job is to hammer it all out into something cohesive."

The opposition party is "pretty confident" it can replace Gandhi's party when parliamentary elections are held two and one-half years from now.

The opposition party will be based on market economy, federalism and a policy of "equidistance from both superpowers," he said.

"The present Mr. Rajiv Gandhi has too much of a tilt to the Soviet Union," said Swamy, adding that he believes the greatest threat in India is from the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Swamy said that in the past opposition groups have been formed too close to election time to weather the potential for political fragmentation. Swamy said he hopes to "get into action" by early 1987, two years before the elections, with campaigns to "demonstrate to people that the opposition is ready to provide leadership."

Swamy said that he began considering the naional opposition coalition party in August, when he began receiving letters from India's currently most poular opposition party.