challenge to and Restoration of the congress system
- Class: 12th
- Subject: Social Science (Political Science)
- Topic: challenge to and Restoration of the congress system
- Resources: Notes, Important Questions
Class 12 Social Science (Political science ) -challenge to and Restoration of the congress system Get notes here, questions for class 12th. Those candidates who are ambitious to pass class 12 with good marks, can check this article for notes, by practicing this resource, the candidates get to know that their weak areas and good for the exam How to prepare.
Challenge of Political Succession
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru passed away in May 1964.77 This had generated the question of succession after Nehru. There were doubts if the new leadershin would be able to handle the multiple crises such as poverty, inequality, communal and regional divisions etc. The 1960s were called as the dangerous decade due to these reasons.
This situation arose serious doubts. These were Whether India's democratic experiment will survive after Nehru. It was feared that like other newly independent countries, India too would not be able to manage a democratic succession.
It was also feared, that it could lead to a political role for the company.
From Nehru to Shastri
When Nehru passed away K Kamraj, the President of the Congress Party chose Lal Bahadur Shastri as the successor of Nehru. Shastri was a non-controversial leader from Uttar Pradesh. He was known for his simplicity and his commitment to principles. Earlier he has resigned from the position of Railway Minister accepting moral responsibility for a major railway accident.
Shastri was the country's Prime Minister from 1964 to 1966. During Shastri's brief Prime Ministership, the country faced
two major challenges. While India was still recovering from the economic implications of the war with China, failed monsoons, drought and serious food crisis presented a grave challenge.
India also faced a war with Pakistan in 1965. Shastri gave the slogan of Jai Jawan Jai Kisan which symbolised the country's resolve to face both the challenges.
Shastri's Prime Ministership came to an end on 10th January 1966, when he suddenly expired in Tashkent, then in USSR and currently the capital of Uzbekistan. He was there to discuss and sign an agreement with Muhammad Ayub Khan, the then President of Pakistan, to end the war.
From Shastri to Indira Gandhi
The Congress faced the challenge of political succession for the second time in two years. There was an intense competition between Morarji Desai and Indira Gandhi. Morarji Desai served as Chief Minister of Bombay and also as a Minister at the centre.
Indira Gandhi was once the President of the Congress and had also been the Union Minister for Information in the Shastri Cabinet. After the sudden death of Lal Bahadur Shastri, the senior leaders of Congress decided to back Indira as Prime Minister but this decision was opposed b few other leaders.
The contest was resolved through a secret ballot among Congress MPs. Indira Gandhi defeated Morarji Desai by securing the support of more than two-third of the party's MPs. Finally, Indira took oath as Prime Minister of India. She remain in the office from 1966 to 1977 and then again from 1980 to 1984.
Fourth General Elections, 1967
The year 1967 is regarded as a landmark year in India's electoral and political history. The country during 1967 elections experienced major changes. These are as follows
Two Prime Ministers had died in quick succession and the new Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi), who had been in office for less than a year was regarded as politically amateur.
Context of the Election
This period was characterised by serious economic crises SEG because of failure of monsoon, widespread drought, decline in agriculture production, food shortage, depletion of foreign exchange reserves, drop in industrial production and exports as well as sharp increase in military expenditure and diversion of resources from planning and economic development.
The devaluation of Indian Rupee was also undertaken by Indira Government.
Economic situation caused price rise in the country. People started protesting against the price rise of essential commodities, food shortage, growing unemployment and overall economic conditions in the country.
The government treated protest, strike, dharna as a law and order problem, not as expressions of the people's problems. This further increased public bitterness and reinforced public dissatisfaction.
The communist and socialist parties launched struggles for greater equality. Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) led armed agrarian struggles and organised peasant agitations
This period also witnessed some of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots since Independence.
Non-Congressism
This situation was also affected from ongoing party politics the country. Opposition parties were in the forefront organising public protests and pressurising the governme Non-Congress political parties realised that the division of th votes kept the Congress in power.
The parties that were entirely different and disparate in the ideology and programmes came together to form anti-Congress front in some state and also entered seat sharin arrangement in other. They thought that the inexperience o Indira Gandhi and internal factionalism within the Congre will help them to collapse the Congress. Ram Manohar Lohiya, a socialist leader called this strategy 'non-Congressism'
Electoral Verdict
The results pushed the Congress at both state and national levels. Many political analysts described the election results as a 'political earthquake'. The Congress managed to get a majority in the Lok sabha, but with lowest tally of seats and share of votes since 1952. Half the ministers in Indra Gandhi's cabinet were defeated.
Coalitions
The elections of 1967 brought the phenomenon of coalitions. As no single party got majority, various non-Congress parties came together to form joint legislative parties that supported non-Congress government i.e. SVD (Samyukt Vidhayak Dal) governments. In most of these cases, the coalition partners were ideologically opposite to each other.
For example, the SVD government in Bihar was formed with coalition of socialist parties SSP (Samyukta Socialist Party) and PSP (Praja Socialist Party) along with CPI on the left and Jana Sangh on the right. In Punjab, it was called the 'Popular United Front' formed by two rival Akali parties, Sant group and the Master group with both communist parties, CPI and CPI (M), SSP, Republican Party and Bharatiya Jana Sangh.
Defections
After the 1967 elections, the important role was played by defections in the making and unmaking of governments in the states. Defection means an elected representatives leaves the party on whose symbol he/she was elected and joins another party. The constant realignment and shifting, political loyalties gave rise to the expression 'Aya Ram, Gaya Rama'. It became popular in India to describe the practice of frequent floor crossing by legislators.
This expression originated when an MLA from Haryana Gaya Lal in 1967 changed his party thrice in a fortnight from Congress to United Front back to Congress and then within nine hours to United Front again. Thus, the Constitution was amended to prevent defections.
Aya Ram, Gaya Ram
The expression 'Aya Ram, Gaya Ram' became popular in the political vocabulary in India to describe the practice of frequent floor-crossing by legislators The expression originated in an amazing feat of floor crossing achieved by Gaya Lal, an MLA in Haryana, in 1967. He change his party thrice in a fortnight, from congress to United Front, back to Congress and then within nine hours to United Front again. It is said that when Gaya Lal declared his intention to quit the United Front and join the Congress, the Congress leader, Rao Birendra Singh bought him to press and declared 'Gaya Ram was now Aya Ram'.
Split of Congress Party
After the 1967 elections, the Congress retained power at the Centre but with a reduced majority and it also lost power in many States. These results porved that the Congress could be defeated at the elections. Most non-Congress coalition governments in the States did not servive for long. The lost D or new had to be imposed.
Indira vs the Syndicate
Indira Gandhi faced challenge from her own party. A group of powerful and influential leaders from within the Congress known as Syndicate had played important role in making Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister. These leaders expected that Indira Gandhi would follow their advise. But gradually, Indira Gandhi made strong position within the government and party. She chose her trusted group of advisers from outside the party. Slowly and carefully, she sidelined the Syndicate. Indira Gandhi thus faced two challenges
Gaining independence from the Syndicate.
(i) Regaining the ground that the Congress had lost in the 1967 elections.
For overcoming these challenges, Indira adopted a very bold strategy. She converted a simple power struggle into an ideological struggle. She launched a series of plans, programmes to give the government policy a left orientation. She started Ten Point Programme in May 1967. which include
- social control of banks,
- nationalisation of general insurance,
- public distribution of food grains,
- ceiling on urban poverty and income
- provision of house site to rural poor.
Presidential Election, 1969
This split in the Congress party was evident during the 1969 Presidential elections. The post of President fell vacant that year after the death of Zakir Hussaing
Despite Indira Gandhi's reservations, the Syndicate nominated their opponent and then Speaker of Lok Sabha, N Sanjeeva Reddy as the official ConRICSS
Candidate for Presidential elections. Indira Gandhi encourages the then Vice Presidente VV Giri to stand for Presidential elections as an independent candidate. She also launched ten point programm in which several popular policy measure like nationalisation of 14 leading private bank abolition of 'Privy Purse', land reforms distribution of food grains, ceiling on urban property and provision of houses to poor were conducted.
Morarji Desai was the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister. On both issues, serious conflict measures emerged between him and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi due to which he left the government. The then Congress President S Nijalingappa issued a whip' asking all the Congress MP's and MLAJs to vote in favour of N Sanjeeva Reddy.
The Congress was divided into two factions, right and left Left attacked Morarji Desai as the representative of big bussiness houses.
Indira Gandhi silently supported VV Giri and she publicly called for a 'conscience vote' which meant that the MP's and MLA's from the Congress are free to vote the way they want.
Finally, the elections resulted in the victory of VV Giri. The defeat of Sanjeeva Reddy, official Congress candidate formalised the split in the party.
After these elections, the Congress President expelled the Prime Minister from the party. Indira Gandhi claimed that her group was the real Congress. By November 1969, group led by Syndicate was called as the Congress (Organisation) and the group led by Indira Gandhi was called the Congress (Requisitionists).
These two parties were described as Old Congress and New Congress. Indira Gandhi projected this split as an ideological divide between socialists and conservatives, between pro-poor and pro-rich
The 1971 Election and Restoration of Congress
After split in the Congress, Indira Government became minority government. However, her government continued in office with issue-based support of Communist Party of India and the DMK. During this period the Indira attempted to popularise her socialist image and eagerly Implemented the existing land reform laws and ceiling fegislation. She dissolved the Lok Sabha in December 1970 to end her dependence of other parties The fifth general election was held in February 1971
The Electoral Contest
The electoral contest appeared to be against Congress (R).
Everyone thought that the organisational strength of the Congress party pose obstacle for Indira Gandhi, all the major non-communist, non-Congress opposition parties formed the Grand Alliance. The SSP PSP, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, was finder the command of Congress (0) To pose Swatantra Party and Bharatiya Kranti Dal were in Grand Alliance. The ruling party had an alliance with CPI.
Indira Gandhi's Strategy
Depsite many obstacles, new Congress had something that its big opponents lacked. It had an issue, an agenda and a positive slogan. The Grand Alliance did not have any effectiv political programme. Grand Alliance had only one common agenda, Indira Hatao (Remove Indira), while Indira had presented a positive programme under the catchy slogan of her garibi hatao (Remove poverty)
Through popular and catchy slogan of garibi hatao, Indira tried to generate a support base among the dalit, adivasis, landless labourers, minorities, women and unemployed youth. The garibi hatao slogan and pro-poor programmes we the part of Indira Gandhi's political strategy of building a nationwide independent political support base.
The Outcome and After
In result of the fifth general elections of 1971 Congress (R CPI alliance won more seats. These votes were far more tha Congress had ever won in the first four general elections. T Congress (R) and CPI together won 375 seats in the Lok Sabha and secured 48.4% vote share and Indira's Congress (R) itself won 352 seats with 44% vote share.
Contrary to this, Congress (O) with so many strong leader could win only 16 seats and got less than one-fourth of vo secured by Indira Gandhi's party. With this, the Congress party led by Indira established its claim of being the real Congress and restored its dominant position in Indian politics. Grand Alliance of the opposition faced a massive failure. They all together won less than 40 seats.
Rising Popularity of Indira Gandhi
After the 1971 Lok Sabha elections a war broke out in Ba Pakistan (now Bangladesh). It increased the popularity c Indira Gandhi. Even opposition leaders admired her leadership. Her party swept through all the State Assembly Elections held in 1972. She was regarded not only as the protector of the poor and the underprivileged but also a strong nationalist leader.
Restoration of Congress System
With two successive victories, one at the centre and other at the state level, the dominance of the Congress was restored. The Congress was in power in all the states now. Thus, within four years Indira Gandhi successfully dealt with challenges to her leadership and to the dominant position of the Congress party.
Hence, Indira Gandhi restored the Congress but by the changing nature of the Congress system itself. Though, new Congress was more popular, but it did not have the kind of capacity to absorb all tensions and conflict that the Congress system was known for. The Congress consolidated its position and Indira enjoyed an unprecedented political authority but the space for democratic expression of people's aspiration actually reduced. The issue of development and economic deprivation continued to cause public unrest and mobilisation.
Abolition of Privy Purse
The integration of the Princely States was preceded by an assurance that after the dissolution of princely rule, the then 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. At the time of accession, there was little criticism of these privileges since integration and consolidation was the primary aim.
Following the 1967 elections, Indira Gandhi supported the demand that the government should abolish Privy Purses. Morarji Desai, however, called the move morally wrong and amounting to a 'breach of faith with the princes'.
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 Purse'.