The whole of Chapter 5 boiled down for the last revision before the exam: the succession after Nehru, the Shastri years, the fourth general election of 1967, non-Congressism, the Samyukt Vidhayak Dal governments, defection, the Syndicate, the split of 1969, the privy purse, the 1971 victory and the restoration of the Congress system. Every date, name, figure and box in one place. The detailed notes are available separately.
1 Definitions and key terms
The Congress system: the arrangement in which the Congress carried many factions, opinions and interests inside itself and had the capacity to absorb all tensions and conflicts. That capacity was what the system was known for.
Non-Congressism (anti-Congressism): parties with different ideological positions coming together to oppose the Congress and its policies. The socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia gave the strategy this name.
Defection: when an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he or she was elected and joins another party.
The Syndicate: the informal name for a group of powerful and influential leaders within the Congress who were in control of the party’s organisation.
Slogan: a catchy phrase that attracts public attention. (This is the book’s own definition, given in exercise Question 2.)
Samyukt Vidhayak Dal (SVD): the joint legislative party formed in 1967 by various non-Congress parties where no single party had a majority. The governments it supported came to be described as SVD governments.
Privy purse: the arrangement made before the integration of the Princely States, by which the then rulers’ families were allowed to retain certain private property and were given a grant in heredity or government allowance. Both were measured on the basis of the extent, revenue and potential of the merging state.
Conscience vote: Indira Gandhi’s call in 1969, which meant that Congress MPs and MLAs should be free to vote the way they want, rather than as the party whip directed.
The Grand Alliance: the 1971 electoral alliance of all the major non-communist, non-Congress opposition parties. It did not have a coherent political programme.
The ‘Kamaraj plan’: K. Kamaraj’s proposal of 1963 that all senior Congressmen should resign from office to make way for younger party workers.
2 Dates that must not get mixed up
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1963 | The ‘Kamaraj plan’ |
| May 1964 | Nehru passes away |
| 3 June 1964 | The Guardian editorial comparing India’s succession with Britain’s |
| 1964 to 1966 | Lal Bahadur Shastri’s Prime Ministership |
| 1965 | War with Pakistan |
| 11 January 1966 | Shastri expires at Tashkent, then in the USSR |
| 1966 | Indira Gandhi wins the secret ballot and becomes Prime Minister |
| February 1967 | The fourth general elections, Lok Sabha and State Assemblies |
| May 1967 | The Congress Working Committee adopts the Ten Point Programme |
| 1967 | Neville Maxwell’s article ‘India’s Disintegrating Democracy’ |
| 1969 | Zakir Hussain’s death and the presidential election; V.V. Giri wins |
| 11 November 1969 | Nijalingappa’s letter expelling Indira Gandhi from the party |
| By November 1969 | The names Congress (O) and Congress (R) come into use |
| 1970 | The privy purse amendment fails in the Rajya Sabha; the ordinance is struck down by the Supreme Court |
| December 1970 | The government recommends the dissolution of the Lok Sabha |
| February 1971 | The fifth general election to the Lok Sabha |
| 1971 | Bangladesh is established; the Constitution is amended to clear the way for abolishing the privy purse |
| 1972 | The Congress sweeps all the State Assembly elections |
| 1973 | Zanjeer, the film discussed at the end of the chapter |
3 The succession after Nehru
- Nehru had been unwell for more than a year. His death raised the usual question ‘after Nehru, who?’ and a more serious one, ‘after Nehru, what?’
- The second question came from doubts about whether India’s democratic experiment would survive. It was feared India would fail to manage a democratic succession, which could lead to a political role for the army.
- The 1960s were labelled the ‘dangerous decade’: poverty, inequality, communal and regional divisions could cause the failure of the democratic project or even the disintegration of the country.
- Succession 1 (1964). K. Kamraj, the Congress president, consulted party leaders and Congress MPs and found a consensus for Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was chosen unanimously. He was a non-controversial leader from Uttar Pradesh, known for his simplicity and commitment to principles.
- Succession 2 (1966). Intense competition between Morarji Desai and Indira Gandhi. The senior leaders backed Indira Gandhi but not unanimously, so it was settled by a secret ballot among Congress MPs, which she won with more than two-thirds of the party’s MPs. The peaceful transition was seen as a sign of the maturity of India’s democracy.
- The senior leaders may have backed her believing that her administrative and political inexperience would keep her dependent on them.
4 Shastri’s Prime Ministership, 1964 to 1966
- Two challenges. The economic aftermath of the war with China, joined by failed monsoons, drought and a serious food crisis; and the 1965 war with Pakistan.
- ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ symbolised the country’s resolve to face both.
- He died suddenly on 11 January 1966 at Tashkent, then in the USSR and currently the capital of Uzbekistan, where he had gone to sign an agreement with Muhammad Ayub Khan, the then President of Pakistan, to end the war.
5 The context of the 1967 elections
Successive failure of monsoons, widespread drought, decline in agricultural production, serious food shortage, depletion of foreign exchange reserves, drop in industrial production and exports, sharp rise in military expenditure, and diversion of resources from planning and economic development.
- Devaluation. One of the government’s first decisions. Earlier one US dollar could be bought for less than Rs. 5; after devaluation it cost more than Rs. 7.
- The economic situation triggered a price rise. People protested against prices of essential commodities, food scarcity and unemployment, and bandhs and hartals were called frequently.
- The government saw the protests as a law and order problem, not as expressions of people’s problems, which increased public bitterness.
- Communist and socialist parties launched struggles for greater equality. A group that separated from the CPI(M) formed the CPI(Marxist-Leninist) and led armed agrarian struggles and peasant agitations.
- The period also saw some of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots since Independence.
6 Non-Congressism
- Opposition parties realised that the division of their votes kept the Congress in power, so parties entirely different and disparate in programme and ideology formed anti-Congress fronts in some states and made electoral adjustments of seats in others.
- They felt that Indira Gandhi’s inexperience and the internal factionalism within the Congress gave them their opportunity.
- Lohia’s argument: Congress rule was undemocratic and opposed to the interests of ordinary poor people, so the coming together of non-Congress parties was necessary for reclaiming democracy for the people.
7 The verdict of 1967
- Held in February 1967, with the Congress facing the electorate for the first time without Nehru. Observers called the results a ‘political earthquake’.
- The Congress got a Lok Sabha majority but with its lowest tally of seats and share of votes since 1952. Half the ministers in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet were defeated.
- Stalwarts who lost: Kamaraj in Tamil Nadu, S.K. Patil in Maharashtra, Atulya Ghosh in West Bengal, K. B. Sahay in Bihar.
- Nine States lost: majority lost in seven, and in two more defections prevented government formation. They were Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madras and Kerala.
- In Madras State (now Tamil Nadu) the DMK came to power with a clear majority after leading a massive anti-Hindi agitation by students. This was the first time any non-Congress party had secured a majority of its own in any State. In the other eight States, coalition governments were formed.
- A popular saying: one could take a train from Delhi to Howrah and not pass through a single Congress ruled State.
8 Coalitions and defection
| Coalition | Who was in it |
|---|---|
| SVD, Bihar | The two socialist parties SSP and PSP, with the CPI on the left and the Jana Sangh on the right |
| ‘Popular United Front’, Punjab | The two rival Akali parties (Sant group and Master group), both communist parties CPI and CPI(M), the SSP, the Republican Party and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh |
- In most cases the coalition partners were ideologically incongruent. Most of these governments did not survive for long: they lost majority, and either new combinations were formed or President’s rule was imposed.
- Breakaway Congress legislators installed non-Congress governments in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The constant realignments gave rise to the expression ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’.
Gaya Lal, an MLA in Haryana, changed his party thrice in a fortnight in 1967: Congress to United Front, back to Congress, and then within nine hours to the United Front again. When he declared he would quit the United Front for the Congress, the Congress leader Rao Birendra Singh brought him to the Chandigarh press and declared that “Gaya Ram was now Aya Ram”. The phrase came to describe frequent floor-crossing by legislators in general. Later, the Constitution was amended to prevent defections.
9 Indira Gandhi against the Syndicate
Led by K. Kamraj, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and then Congress president. Members included S. K. Patil of Bombay city, S. Nijalingappa of Mysore, N. Sanjeeva Reddy of Andhra Pradesh and Atulya Ghosh of West Bengal. Both Shastri and later Indira Gandhi owed their position to its support, and it had a decisive say in her first Council of Ministers and in policy formulation and implementation. After the split its leaders stayed with the Congress (O), and since it was the Congress (R) that won the test of popularity, all these big and powerful men lost their power and prestige after 1971.
- Her two tasks: build independence from the Syndicate, and regain the ground lost in 1967.
- Her strategy was bold: she converted a simple power struggle into an ideological struggle, chose advisers from outside the party and slowly sidelined the Syndicate.
- Ten Point Programme, May 1967: social control of banks, nationalisation of General Insurance, ceiling on urban property and income, public distribution of food grains, land reforms, provision of house sites to the rural poor. The syndicate leaders formally approved it but had serious reservations about it.
10 The presidential election of 1969 and the split
- Zakir Hussain died and the post of President fell vacant. The Syndicate nominated N. Sanjeeva Reddy, then Speaker of the Lok Sabha and her long time opponent, as the official Congress candidate.
- She retaliated by encouraging Vice-President V.V. Giri to stand as an independent, and announced the nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks and the abolition of the privy purse.
- Morarji Desai, then Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, differed with her on both and left the government.
- Nijalingappa issued a whip for Sanjeeva Reddy. Her supporters requisitioned a special meeting of the AICC, which was refused, and so her faction was called the ‘requisitionists’. She called for a ‘conscience vote’.
- V.V. Giri won; the official candidate lost. The defeat of the official Congress candidate formalised the split. The Congress President expelled the Prime Minister; she claimed her group was the real Congress.
- By November 1969: Congress (Organisation) under the syndicate and Congress (Requisitionists) under Indira Gandhi, also called the Old Congress and the New Congress. She projected the split as a divide between socialists and conservatives, the pro-poor and the pro-rich.
11 The abolition of the privy purse
1. Integration of the Princely States was preceded by an assurance of private property plus a grant in heredity or government allowance, measured on the extent, revenue and potential of the merging state. At accession there was little criticism, because integration and consolidation were the primary aim.
2. Hereditary privileges were not consonant with the principles of equality and social and economic justice in the Constitution, and Nehru had expressed his dissatisfaction time and again.
3. After 1967 Indira Gandhi supported abolition. Morarji Desai called it morally wrong and a ‘breach of faith with the princes’.
4. The Constitutional amendment of 1970 was not passed in the Rajya Sabha; the ordinance that followed was struck down by the Supreme Court.
5. She made it a major election issue in 1971, and after the massive victory the Constitution was amended to remove the legal obstacles.
12 The 1971 election and the restoration
- The split left her government in a minority, continuing on the issue-based support of a few parties including the CPI and the DMK. She campaigned for implementing existing land reform laws and undertook further land ceiling legislation.
- To end that dependence, strengthen her party in Parliament and seek a popular mandate, the government recommended the dissolution of the Lok Sabha in December 1970.
- The Grand Alliance: SSP, PSP, BJS, Swatantra Party (SWA) and Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD). The ruling party’s ally was the CPI.
- ‘Indira Hatao‘ was the opposition’s only common programme. Against it she set ‘Garibi Hatao‘: growth of the public sector, ceilings on rural land holdings and urban property, removal of disparities in income and opportunity, abolition of princely privileges.
- Its target base: the landless labourers, Dalits and Adivasis, minorities, women and the unemployed youth.
| 1971 result | Seats | Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Congress(R) and CPI combine | 375 | 48.4 per cent |
| Congress(R) on its own | 352 | about 44 per cent |
| Congress(O) | merely 16 | less than one-fourth of Indira Gandhi’s party’s votes |
| Grand Alliance, combined | less than 60 | the alliance proved a grand failure |
- Soon after came the crisis in East Pakistan and the Indo-Pak war leading to the establishment of Bangladesh. Even opposition leaders admired her statesmanship, and her party swept all the State Assembly elections of 1972.
- She was seen as the protector of the poor and the underprivileged and also as a strong nationalist leader.
13 Restoration, but of a different Congress
| Old Congress | New Congress |
|---|---|
| A federal party with many factions | Did not have many factions |
| Could accommodate all kinds of opinions and interests | Could not accommodate them |
| A strong organisation, with state leaders as king-makers | A somewhat weak organisational structure |
| Support spread broadly across the country | Depended more on the poor, women, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities |
| Rested on the party | Relied entirely on the popularity of the supreme leader |
- It was not a revival of the old party. In many ways she had re-invented it, so she restored the Congress system by changing the nature of the Congress system itself.
- Despite being more popular, it lacked the capacity to absorb all tensions and conflicts. As it consolidated its position and she assumed unprecedented political authority, the spaces for democratic expression of people’s aspirations actually shrank, while popular unrest around development and economic deprivation kept growing. That is what led to the crisis of the next chapter.
14 The people in the biography boxes
| Name | What the box says |
|---|---|
| Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904-1966) | In the freedom movement since 1930; minister in the UP cabinet; General Secretary of Congress; Union Cabinet 1951 to 1956 (resigned over the railway accident) and 1957 to 1964; coined ‘Jai Jawan-Jai Kisan’ |
| Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) | PM 1966 to 1977 and 1980 to 1984; Congress President in 1959; minister in Shastri’s cabinet 1964-66; led the Congress to victory in 1967, 1971 and 1980; credited with ‘Garibi Hatao’, the 1971 war victory, abolition of Privy Purse, nationalisation of banks, the nuclear test and environmental protection; assassinated on 31 October 1984 |
| Ram Manohar Lohia (1910-1967) | Among the founders of the Congress Socialist Party; leader of the Socialist Party and later the Samyukta Socialist Party; Member, Lok Sabha, 1963-67; founder editor of Mankind and Jan; known for sharp attacks on Nehru, the strategy of non-Congressism, advocacy of reservation for backward castes and opposition to English |
| C. Natarajan Annadurai (1909-1969) | Chief Minister of Madras (Tamil Nadu) from 1967; journalist, writer and orator; first with the Justice Party; joined Dravid Kazagham in 1934; formed the DMK as a political party in 1949; opposed the imposition of Hindi and led the anti-Hindi agitations; supported greater autonomy to States |
| K. Kamaraj (1903-1975) | Freedom fighter and Congress President; Chief Minister of Madras (Tamil Nadu); spread education in Madras province; introduced the mid-day meal scheme for schoolchildren; proposed the ‘Kamaraj plan’ in 1963 |
| S. Nijalingappa (1902-2000) | Member of the Constituent Assembly; member of Lok Sabha; Chief Minister of the then Mysore (Karnataka); regarded as the maker of modern Karnataka; President of Congress during 1968-71 |
| Karpoori Thakur (1924-1988) | Chief Minister of Bihar December 1970 to June 1971 and June 1977 to April 1979; freedom fighter and socialist leader; active in labour and peasant movements; staunch follower of Lohia; participated in the movement led by JP; introduced reservations for the backward classes in Bihar in his second term; strong opponent of the use of English |
| V.V. Giri (1894-1980) | President of India 1969 to 1974; Congress worker and labour leader from Andhra Pradesh; High Commissioner to Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Labour Minister; Governor of U.P., Kerala and Mysore (Karnataka); Vice-President 1967-1969 and acting President after Zakir Hussain’s death; resigned and contested as an independent with Indira Gandhi’s support |
15 The boxes, quotations and cartoons the paper can ask about
- Cover cartoon (R. K. Laxman). The Congress’s original election symbol was a pair of bullocks. The cartoon depicts the changes within the Congress leading to a head-on confrontation in the 22nd year after Independence.
- The Guardian, London, 3 June 1964. It said India’s new Prime Minister, in spite of all forebodings, had been named with more dispatch and much more dignity than the new Prime Minister of Britain. It was comparing the succession after Nehru with the succession drama after Harold Macmillan.
- Neville Maxwell, ‘India’s Disintegrating Democracy’, London Times, 1967. It predicted that the army would be the only alternative source of authority and order, and that the great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework had failed. Events proved it wrong.
- Election in a Rajasthan Village. The 1967 Assembly election in the Chomu constituency, where Congress and the Swatantra party were the main parties. In village Devisar, Sher Singh traditionally dominated village politics but his nephew Bhim Singh was emerging as a rival. Both were Rajputs, but Bhim Singh built an alliance of Rajputs and non-Rajputs after becoming panchayat Pradhan, and took a delegation to Chief Minister Mohan Lal Sukhadia. Sher Singh worked for the Swatantra candidate, a jagirdar who promised to help build the village school. The Assembly election had turned into a factional fight between uncle and nephew. Based on Anand Chakravarti.
- S Nijalingappa’s expulsion letter, 11 November 1969. It warned of the tragedy that overtakes democracy when a leader risen to power on a popular wave becomes a victim of political narcissism and is egged on by a coterie of unscrupulous sycophants.
- ‘The Left Hook’ (R. K. Laxman, 21 August 1969). Published after the victory of V.V. Giri, the boxer with the garland, over the nominee of the Syndicate, represented by Nijalingappa on his knees.
- Cartoon of 20 July 1969 (Vijayan, Shankar’s Weekly). A cartoonist’s impression of the leadership rivalry in the Congress Party in 1969.
- Kutty’s 1974 cartoon. A reading of Charan Singh’s attempt to build a United Front of non-communist parties. A second Kutty cartoon comments on the new manner of choosing Chief Ministers by Indira Gandhi.
- ‘The Grand Finish’. A cartoonist’s reading of the outcome of the 1971 elections, with the then leading opposition figures as the players on the ground.
- Let’s watch a Film: Zanjeer (1973). Director Prakash Mehra, screenplay Salim Khan-Javed Akhtar, cast Amitabh Bachchan, Ajit, Jaya Bhaduri, Pran. Vijay, a young police officer framed on false charges, takes revenge and fights the anti-social element with the tacit support of others within the system. The film portrays the erosion of moral values, the indifference of the system and the eruption of protest, and it set the trend of what was later known as the ‘angry young man’ of the seventies.
The chapter’s margin asks several questions that make good short answers. Why is India alone suspected of failure when France or Canada have similar problems: because India’s democracy was new, poor and very large, and outsiders assumed those conditions could not hold a democracy together. Was Garibi Hatao only an election gimmick: it did win an election, but Sudipta Kaviraj, in the passage set in exercise Question 10, argues that in the new populist politics slogans were not meant to be translated into government policies. What was common between the Old and the New Congress: the name, the popularity and the dominant position, but not the organisation, the factions or the breadth of the social base. The end-of-chapter activity asks you to list the slogans coined by political parties, compare manifestoes with advertisements, and discuss how price rise affects political fortunes.
1. Writing that the Congress lost the Lok Sabha in 1967. It did not: it kept its majority, but with the lowest seats and vote share since 1952.
2. Putting the abolition of the privy purse inside the Ten Point Programme of 1967. It was announced separately in 1969, along with the nationalisation of fourteen banks.
3. Mixing up 375 and 352. The 375 seats and 48.4 per cent belong to the Congress(R) and CPI combine; the 352 seats and about 44 per cent to Congress(R) alone.