A fast revision cut of Class 12 Political Science, Politics in India Since Independence,
Chapter 2, Era of One-Party Dominance. Every definition, every date and every named fact the
paper asks for, with nothing in between. Read the full notes first; read this the morning of the
exam.
1 All the Definitions
Delimitation. Drawing the boundaries of the electoral constituencies. It was one of the
two tasks that had to be finished before the first general election could be held.
Electoral rolls. The list of all the citizens eligible to vote. Preparing them was the
second of the two preparatory tasks, and it is where the 40 lakh missing women’s names were
found.
Universal adult franchise. The right to vote given to every adult citizen. India adopted
it at its very first election, when democracy elsewhere existed mainly in prosperous, literate
countries, and when many countries in Europe had still not given voting rights to all women.
First-past-the-post. The system of election adopted in India, in which the party that gets
more votes than others tends to get much more than its proportional share of seats. It is what
artificially boosted the extent of the Congress’s victory.
One-party dominance. A situation in which one party keeps winning election after election.
In most countries it is ensured by compromising democracy; in India it happened under democratic
conditions.
Factions. The groups inside a party. Most of the state units of the Congress were made up
of numerous factions, some based on ideological considerations but very often rooted in personal
ambitions and rivalries.
The ‘Congress system’. The name given to this period of Indian politics,
because in the first decade of electoral competition the Congress acted both as the ruling party as
well as the opposition.
Social coalition. The Congress as a ‘rainbow-like social coalition’ broadly
representing India’s diversity in terms of classes and castes, religions and languages and various
interests.
Ideological coalition. The Congress as a party that accommodated the revolutionary and
pacifist, conservative and radical, extremist and moderate, and the right, left and all shades of
the centre.
Democratic socialism. The ideology of the socialists, which distinguished them both from
the Congress and from the Communists.
2 The Numbers You Must Not Mix Up
| Figure | What it is |
|---|---|
| 40 lakh | Women whose names were missing from the first draft of the rolls, entered only as “wife of …” or “daughter of …” |
| 17 crore | Eligible voters at the first general election |
| about 3,200 | MLAs to be elected |
| 489 | Members of Lok Sabha to be elected |
| 15 per cent | Share of eligible voters who were literate |
| over 3 lakh | Officers and polling staff the Election Commission trained |
| about 20 lakh | Steel ballot boxes used |
| more than 4 | Candidates per seat, on average |
| more than half | Share of eligible voters who turned out |
| 6 months | Time taken for campaigning, polling and counting |
| 364 of 489 | Seats the Congress won in the first Lok Sabha |
| 16 | Seats the CPI won, making it the largest opposition party |
| 3 (1952), 4 (1957) | Lok Sabha seats the Bharatiya Jana Sangh won |
| 45% votes → 74% seats | The Congress in 1952 |
| >10% votes → <3% seats | The Socialist Party in 1952 |
| three-fourth | Share of Lok Sabha seats the Congress won in 1957 and 1962 |
| one-tenth | Share of the Congress’s seats that no opposition party could reach |
| 60 of 126 + 5 | Kerala 1957: CPI seats, plus five independents |
3 lakh is the polling staff. 20 lakh is the ballot boxes. 40 lakh is the
women’s names. 17 crore is the voters. Every year students swap two of these.
3 The Timeline
Earlier years that belong to the party boxes rather than to the election story:
1885 the Congress is founded as a pressure group, early 1920s communist groups emerge,
1934 the Congress Socialist Party is formed inside the Congress, 1935 the Communists
begin working within the Congress, Dec 1941 they part ways over supporting Britain against Nazi
Germany, 1948 the Congress bars dual membership and the Socialist Party is formed
separately.
4 The First General Election in One Page
An interim government was ruling. The Constitution had
laid down the rules; the machine had to be put in place.
Delimitation, and preparing the electoral rolls. Both
took a lot of time.
40 lakh women were listed only as somebody’s wife or
daughter. The Commission refused the entries and ordered a revision if possible and deletion if
necessary.
Only 15 per cent were literate, so each booth got a box
per candidate carrying that candidate’s symbol, and each voter dropped a blank ballot paper into the
box of their choice.
More than four candidates per seat, more than half the
voters turning out, and a verdict the losers accepted.
- An Indian editor called it “the biggest gamble in history”.
- Organiser, a magazine, wrote that Jawaharlal Nehru “would live to confess the
failure of universal adult franchise in India”. - A British member of the Indian Civil Service claimed that “a future and more enlightened
age will view with astonishment the absurd farce of recording the votes of millions of illiterate
people”.
- The Times of India: the polls have “confounded all those sceptics who thought the
introduction of adult franchise too risky an experiment in this country”. - The Hindustan Times: “there is universal agreement that the Indian people have
conducted themselves admirably in the largest experiment in democratic elections in the history of
the world”.
The conclusion the chapter draws: India’s general election of 1952 became a landmark in the
history of democracy all over the world, because it was no longer possible to argue that democratic
elections could not be held in conditions of poverty or lack of education.
5 How Voting Changed
| When | Method |
|---|---|
| First two general elections | A box for each candidate with that candidate’s symbol; the voter drops a blank ballot paper into the chosen box. About 20 lakh steel boxes. |
| Third to thirteenth general elections, for nearly forty years | One ballot paper carrying the names and symbols of all the candidates; the voter puts a stamp on the name of their candidate. |
| End of the 1990s | The Election Commission starts using the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). |
| By 2004 | The entire country has shifted to the EVM. |
The chapter also quotes a presiding officer from Punjab on preparing the boxes:
each carried its candidate’s symbol inside and outside, and the candidate’s name in Urdu, Hindi and
Punjabi along with the constituency, polling station and booth numbers. It took about five hours for
six persons, including his two daughters, and all of it was done at his house.
6 Why the Congress Dominated
Seen as inheritor of the national
movement; its struggle leaders were now its candidates.
Spread across the length and breadth of
the country, with a network down to the local level.
Its campaign had already started
before rivals could think of a strategy; many parties were formed only around independence.
The most popular and charismatic leader in Indian politics; he led
the campaign and toured the country.
Till recently a national movement, so it could hold
together groups whose interests were often contradictory.
First-past-the-post turned 45 per cent of the votes
into 74 per cent of the seats, while the non-Congress vote stayed divided.
7 The Congress System and Its Factions
1. The Congress had a coalition-like character, and a coalition accommodates all those who
join it.
2. So it had to avoid extreme positions and strike a balance on almost all issues.
Compromise and inclusiveness are the hallmarks of a coalition.
3. That put the opposition in difficulty: anything the opposition wanted to say would also
find a place in the Congress’s programme and ideology.
4. A coalition-like party also tolerates internal differences and accommodates the
ambitions of groups and leaders.
5. So an unhappy group stayed inside and fought the other groups rather than leaving to
become an ‘opposition’. These groups are the factions.
6. Therefore internal factionalism became a strength, not a weakness: leaders of
different interests and ideologies stayed in rather than forming new parties.
7. The factions took different ideological positions, which made the Congress appear a
grand centrist party, and the system of factions worked as a balancing mechanism inside the ruling
party.
8. Political competition therefore took place within the Congress, which acted both
as the ruling party and as the opposition. Hence the ‘Congress system’.
8 India’s Dominance Compared with the World’s
| Countries | How the one party stayed on top |
|---|---|
| China, Cuba, Syria | The constitution permits only a single party to rule the country |
| Myanmar, Belarus, Egypt, Eritrea | Effectively one-party states due to legal and military measures |
| Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan | Effectively one-party dominant states until a few years ago |
| India | Under democratic conditions: many parties contested free and fair elections and the Congress still won election after election |
| South Africa | The one genuine parallel: the African National Congress’s dominance after the end of apartheid |
9 The Opposition Parties
| Party | Formed | What to remember | Leaders named |
|---|---|---|---|
| Socialist Party | CSP inside the Congress in 1934; separate party in 1948 | Formed separately because the Congress amended its constitution in 1948 to bar dual membership. Believed in democratic socialism. Criticised the Congress for favouring capitalists and landlords and ignoring workers and peasants. Dilemma in 1955 when the Congress declared its goal to be the socialist pattern of society. Splits produced the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party, the Praja Socialist Party and the Samyukta Socialist Party. Today’s Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (United) and Janata Dal (Secular) trace their origins to it. |
Jayaprakash Narayan, Achyut Patwardhan, Asoka Mehta, Acharya Narendra Dev, Rammanohar Lohia, S. M. Joshi |
| Communist Party of India | Groups from the early 1920s | Inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Worked inside the Congress from 1935; parted ways in December 1941 over supporting the British against Nazi Germany. Had a well-oiled party machinery and dedicated cadre at independence. Asked whether India was really free or freedom was a sham; encouraged violent uprisings in Telangana, failed to win popular support and was crushed by the armed forces. Abandoned violent revolution in 1951. Won 16 seats and became the largest opposition party. Support concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Kerala. Split in 1964 after the Soviet-China rift into the CPI and the CPI(M). |
A. K. Gopalan, S. A. Dange, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, P. C. Joshi, Ajay Ghosh, P. Sundarraya |
| Bharatiya Jana Sangh | 1951 | Founder-President Shyama Prasad Mukherjee; lineage traced to the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha. One country, one culture, one nation; the country to become modern, progressive and strong on the basis of Indian culture and traditions; reunion of India and Pakistan in Akhand Bharat; Hindi in place of English as official language; opposed to concessions to religious and cultural minorities; a consistent advocate of nuclear weapons, especially after China’s atomic tests of 1964. Won 3 seats in 1952 and 4 in 1957. Early support from urban areas in the Hindi speaking states: Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. The BJP traces its roots to it. |
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Balraj Madhok |
| Swatantra Party | Not given in this chapter | Named only in the exercise, not described in this chapter. Its box was removed when the book was rationalised. Exercise Q1(c) gives its guiding principle as an economy free from State control, and Q2 pairs it with Minoo Masani. |
Minoo Masani (from the exercise) |
They gained only a token representation, yet their presence kept the system democratic. They
offered sustained and often principled criticism, which kept the ruling party under check and often
changed the balance of power inside the Congress. By keeping a democratic alternative alive they
prevented resentment with the system from turning anti-democratic. They groomed the leaders who
shaped the country later, and the roots of almost all of today’s non-Congress parties go back to
them. Because they were far from actual authority, they worked on the Congress’s factions and
influenced policy indirectly, from the “margins”.
In the early years there was mutual respect: the interim government included Dr. Ambedkar and
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, and Nehru invited socialist leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan to join his
government. That personal respect declined as party competition grew more intense.
10 Kerala 1957: The One Big Exception
The Communist Party wins the largest number of seats in
the Kerala legislature: 60 of 126, with the support of five independents.
The governor invites E. M. S. Namboodiripad,
leader of the Communist legislature party. For the first time in the world, a Communist party
government comes to power through democratic elections.
On losing power the Congress begins a
‘liberation struggle’. The CPI had come to power promising radical and progressive policy
measures; the Communists claim the agitation is led by vested interests and religious
organisations.
The Congress government at the Centre dismisses the government
under Article 356. The decision proved very controversial and was widely cited as one of the
prominent instances of the misuse of constitutional emergency powers.
11 The People the Paper Names
| Name | What the chapter says |
|---|---|
| Jawaharlal Nehru | The most popular and charismatic leader in Indian politics; led the Congress campaign; became Prime Minister after the first general election. His letter to Rajaji after P. D. Tandon was elected Congress president against his wishes says he had “completely exhausted my utility both in the Congress and Govt”. |
| Sukumar Sen | The first Chief Election Commissioner. |
| E. M. S. Namboodiripad | Leader of the Communist legislature party in Kerala; formed the ministry in 1957. |
| Rajni Kothari | Author of the exercise passage on Patel, Gandhi and the eclectic role of the Congress. |
| Babasaheb B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) | Leader of the anti-caste movement; founder of the Independent Labour Party, later the Scheduled Castes Federation; planned the Republican Party of India; Chairman of the Drafting Committee; minister in Nehru’s first cabinet; resigned in 1951 over the Hindu Code Bill; adopted Buddhism in 1956. His Constituent Assembly speech of 25 November 1949 warns that hero-worship in politics is “a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship”. |
| Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901-1953) | Leader of the Hindu Mahasabha; founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh; minister in Nehru’s first cabinet; resigned in 1950 over relations with Pakistan; opposed India’s policy of autonomy to Jammu & Kashmir; died during detention. |
| Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) | Scholar of Islam; freedom fighter and Congress leader; proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity; opposed to Partition; Education Minister in the first cabinet of free India. |
| Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (1889-1964) | Gandhian and freedom fighter from the royal family of Kapurthala; Health Minister in independent India’s first ministry, continuing till 1957. |
| Acharya Narendra Dev (1889-1956) | Founding President of the Congress Socialist Party; a scholar of Buddhism; later led the Socialist Party and then the Praja Socialist Party. |
| Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (1894-1954) | Congress leader from U.P.; Minister for Communications in the first ministry of free India; Food and Agriculture Minister, 1952-54. |
| A. K. Gopalan (1904-1977) | Communist leader from Kerala; joined the Communist Party in 1939; joined the CPI(M) after the 1964 split; Member of Parliament from 1952. |
| Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (1916-1968) | Full-time RSS worker since 1942; founder member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh; initiated the concept of integral humanism. |
Also named, in the cartoon and photograph captions: Shankar, whose
“Tug of War” of 29 August 1954 shows A. K. Gopalan, Acharya Kripalani, N. C. Chatterjee,
Srikantan Nair and Sardar Hukum Singh trying to topple the tree on which Nehru and his cabinet sit;
and the 1951 Congress election committee of Morarji Desai, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Dr B. C. Roy, Kamaraj
Nadar, Rajagopalachari, Jagjivan Ram, Maulana Azad, D. P. Mishra, P. D. Tandon and Govind Ballabh
Pant. The chapter’s film box recommends Simhasan (1981), Jabbar Patel’s Marathi film written by
Vijay Tendulkar, on the factional struggle for the Chief Minister’s post in Maharashtra.
12 The Last-Minute Check
- Election Commission set up January 1950; Sukumar Sen the first Chief Election
Commissioner. - 40 lakh women’s names missing; the Commission ordered a revision if possible and
deletion if necessary. - 17 crore voters, 489 MPs, 15 per cent literate, 20 lakh boxes,
3 lakh staff. - Held October 1951 to February 1952, called the 1952 election, six months to
complete. - Congress 364 of 489; CPI 16 and largest opposition party.
- First-past-the-post: 45 per cent of votes, 74 per cent of seats; the Socialist Party got
more than 10 per cent of votes and under 3 per cent of seats. - Kerala, March 1957: CPI 60 of 126, Namboodiripad’s ministry, dismissed 1959 under
Article 356. - Congress dominance was different because it happened under democratic conditions; the
parallel is the African National Congress in South Africa. - Factions were a strength, not a weakness, and competition took place inside the party:
the ‘Congress system’. - The opposition won only token seats but kept the system democratic, and today’s non-Congress
parties trace back to it.