Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System 

Challenges of Political Succession

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in 1964 has generated a lot of speculation about the usual question of succession.

The 1960s were labelled as the ‘Dangerous Decade’ due to many unsolved problems like poverty , inequality, communal and regional division etc.

From Nehru to Shastri

After Nehru’s death, Lal Bahadur Shastri was unanimously chosen as the leader of the congress parliamentary party and thus became the country's next Prime Minister.

Shastri was the country’s Prime Minister from 1964 to 1966. During Shastri’s brief Prime Ministership, the country faced two major challenges: severe food crisis, and war with pakistan. Shastri’s Prime Ministership came to an abrupt end on 10 January 1966, when he suddenly expired in Tashkent(current capital of uzbekistan). He was there to discuss and sign an agreement to end the war with Pakistan.

Shastri’s famous slogan ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’, symbolised the country’s resolve to face both these challenges.

From Shastri to Indira Gandhi

After the sudden death of Shastri’s in 1966, there was an intense competition between Morarji Desai and Indira Gandhi. But Indira Gandhi was backed by the senior leaders in the party.

A peaceful transition of power, despite intense competition for leadership, was seen as a sign of maturity of India’s democracy.

 Fourth General Elections

The year 1967 is considered as a landmark year in India’s political and electoral history. Because the political dominance of Congress party has undergone significant changes with the 1967 elections.

Context of the Elections

One of the first decisions of the Indira Gandhi government was to devalue the Indian rupee. The economic situation triggered off price rise.

People started protesting against the increase in prices of essential commodities, food scarcity, growing unemployment and the overall economic condition in the country. The government saw the protests as a law and order problem. This further increased public bitterness and reinforced unrest. The communist and socialist parties launched struggles for greater equality.

Non-Congressism

Opposition parties were in the forefront of organising public protests and pressurising the government. These opposition parties felt that the inexperience of Indira Gandhi and the internal fractionalism within the Congress provided them an opportunity to topple the Congress. The socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia gave this strategy in the name of Non-Congressism.

Electoral Verdict

The fourth general elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies were held in february 1967. The results jolted the congress at both the national and state levels. Many contemporary political observers described the election results as a ‘political earthquake’. There were 9 states where Congress lost its power. Madras state(now Tamil Nadu) a regional party DMK came to power with a clear majority and this was the first time any non congress party had secured majority of its own in any state.

 Coalitions

The elections of 1967 brought into picture the phenomenon of coalitions.

Since no single party had got a majority, various non-congress parties came together to form joint legislative parties that supported non-congress governments. Due to which these governments were described as SVD(Samyukt Vidhayak Dal) governments.

Defection

Defection means an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he/she elected and joins another party.

Another important feature of the politics after the 1967 election was the role played by defections in making and unmaking of governments in state. The constant realignments and shifting political loyalties in this period gave rise to the expression ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’.

Split in the Congress

The real challenge to Indira Gandhi came not from the opposition but from within her own party. The ‘syndicate’ a group of powerful and influential leaders from within the congress.

Indira Gandhi thus faced two challenges from syndicate: one is to build her independence from syndicate and the other is to work towards regaining the ground that the Congress had lost in the 1967 elections.

Indira Gandhi adopted a very bold strategy. She launched a series of initiatives to give the government policy a Le orientation. She got the Congress Working Committee to adopt a Ten Point Programme in May 1967. like, social control of banks, nationalisation of General Insurance, ceiling on urban property and income etc.

Presidential elections, 1969

The factional rivalry between the Syndicate and Indira Gandhi was clearly visible when the post of President of India was vacated in 1969 aer the death of Zakir Hussain. Syndicate supported official candidate of the Congress N.Sanjeeva Reddy while Indira Gandhi supported V V Giri as the candidate for the President of India.

Indira Gandhi announced the nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks and the abolition of the ‘privy purse’ which removed past differences between Morarji Desai and Indira Gandhi. The defeat of the official Congress candidate formalised the split in the party.

By November 1969, the Congress group led by the ‘syndicate’ came to be referred to as the Congress (Organisation- Old Congress) and the group led by Indira Gandhi came to be called the Congress (Requisitionists- New Congress). Indira Gandhi projected the split as an ideological divide between socialists and conservatives, between the pro-poor and the pro-rich. 

Abolition of Privy Purse :

The integration of the Princely States. This integration was preceded by an assurance that after the dissolution of princely rule, the rulers' families would be allowed to retain certain private property, and given a grant in heredity or government allowance, measured on the basis of the extent, revenue and potential of the merging state. This grant was called the privy purse.

Following the 1967 elections, Indira Gandhi supported the demand that the government should abolish privy purses. The government tried to bring a Constitutional amendment in 1970, but it was not passed in Rajya Sabha. It then issued an ordinance which was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Indira Gandhi made this into a major election issue in 1971 and got a lot of public support. Following its massive victory in the 1971 election, the Constitution was amended to remove legal obstacles for abolition of ‘privy purses’.

The 1971 General Elections and Restoration of Congress

The split in the Congress reduced Indira Gandhi Government to a minority. Yet her government continued in office with the issue-based support of a few other parties including the CPI and the DMK.

Indira Gandhi’s government recommended the dissolution of the Lok Sabha in December 1970. This was another surprising and bold move. The fifth general election to Lok Sabha was held in February 1971.

The Contest

In 1971, general elections all the major non-communist, non- Congress opposition parties formed an electoral alliance known as the Grand Alliance.

Indira Gandhi said that the opposition alliance had only one common programme i.e, Indira Hatao. In contrast to this, she put forward a positive programme captured in the famous slogan: Garibi Hatao (Remove Poverty). The slogan of garibi hatao and the programmes that followed it were part of Indira Gandhi’s political strategy of building an independent nationwide political support base.

The Outcome and After

The results of the Lok Sabha elections of 1971, The Congress(R)-CPI alliance won more seats and votes than the Congress had ever won in the first four general elections.

The Grand Alliance of the opposition proved a grand failure. Their combined tally of seats was less than 40. Whereas Indira Gandhi’s Congress(R) won 352 seats with about 44 per cent of the popular votes on its own.

The 1971 elections were followed by the crisis in East Pakistan and the Indo- Pak war leading to the establishment of Bangladesh. These events added to the popularity of Indira Gandhi.

Indira Gandhi’s party swept through all the State Assembly elections held in 1972. With two successive election victories, one at the centre and other at the State level, the dominance of the Congress was restored.

Restoration

In many ways Indira Gandhi had re-invented the party. This was a new congress that emerged and Indira Gandhi restored the congress system by changing the nature of the congress system itself.

While the congress consolidated its position and Indira Gandhi assumed a position of unprecedented political authority, the spaces for democratic expression of people's aspirations actually shrank.

The popular unrest and mobilisation around the issues of development and economic depression continued to grow.  

Share

& Comment

Tweet