Opinion April 8, 1976, Forty Years Ago: Deng Ousted

A look at the front page of The Indian Express, published on April 8, 1976, Forty Years Ago.

The central committee of the Communist Party of China dismissed Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping from all government and party posts. Deng, however, was permitted to retain party membership to “see how he will behave himself in the future”. The CC also confirmed Hua Guofeng as prime minister. Deng had been purged during the cultural revolution. Then he was rehabilitated by the late Chou En-lai and when he received US President Ford he looked very much in charge of China. Hua, former security chief, was a shad-owy figure about whom nothing was kn-own. No one knows whether the developments had the blessings of Chairman Mao or his wife, Madam Chiang Ching, who had blamed “a small minority of vicious small men” for the disorders. The Tiananmen Square in Peking, where Chou’s supporters had rioted, was cordoned off by the security forces. These dramatic developments showed that the truce between the “left” and ‘‘right’’ in the Chinese Communist Party could not last.

Indira On Inflation

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi warned that inflationary pressure could reassert themselves if strict watch was not kept on government expenditure in the current year. In identical letters to chief ministers and Central ministers, Mrs Gandhi emphasised the need to secure maximum possible results from the sizeable step-up in the plan outlay. This should lead to higher growth and larger employment. She said the salient feature of the budget was the substantial increase in development expenditure.

Sterilisation Debate

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The Chief Ministers’ Conference on Family Planning was set to discuss how to make sterilisation acceptable for all communities. Minister for Family Planning Karan Singh, had said the new national programme for family planning would cover all communities “without any exception”.