Chapter 5

Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress

System

Challenge of Political Succession

Death of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru*
- Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru passed away in May 1964.
- He had been suffering from an illness for over a year, which was a matter
of public knowledge.

Speculation About Succession*

- Nehru's illness gave rise to speculation about his successor as the Prime
Minister.
- The question of "after Nehru, who?" was a common concern.

Concerns About India's Future*

- In the context of a newly independent country like India, the situation
raised a more profound question: "after Nehru, what?"
- This question reflected the uncertainty about the country's future direction.

Doubts About Democratic Survival*

- Many outsiders expressed serious doubts about the survival of India's
democratic experiment after Nehru's passing.
- There were concerns that India might face challenges similar to other
newly independent nations, where managing a democratic succession had
been problematic.

Fear of Political Role for the Army*

- It was feared that a failure to manage a democratic succession could
potentially lead to a political role for the army.
- This raised concerns about the stability of democratic governance in India.
Leadership's Ability to Handle Crises*
- There were doubts about whether the new leadership that would emerge
after Nehru's death could effectively handle the multiple crises facing the
country.

The 'Dangerous Decade'*

- The 1960s were characterised as the 'dangerous decade.'
- During this time, there were numerous unresolved problems such as
poverty, inequality, communal and regional divisions, and more.

Threats to Democracy and National Integrity*

- The accumulation of these problems could potentially pose a serious
threat to the democratic project.
- It even raised concerns about the possibility of the disintegration of the
country if these challenges were not adequately addressed.

From Nehru to Shastri

1. The ease with which the succession after Nehru took place proved all the
critics wrong.
2. When Nehru passed away, K. Kamraj, the president of the Congress party
consulted party leaders and Congress members of Parliament and found
that there was a consensus in favour of Lal Bahadur Shastri.
3. He was unanimously chosen as the leader of the Congress parliamentary
party and thus became the country’s next Prime Minister.
4. Shastri was a non-controversial leader from Uttar Pradesh who had been a
Minister in Nehru’s cabinet for many years.
5. Nehru had come to depend a lot on him in his last year.
6. He was known for his simplicity and his commitment to principles.
7. Earlier he had resigned from the position of Railway Minister accepting
moral responsibility for a major railway accident.
8. Shastri was the country’s Prime Minister from 1964 to 1966.
9. During Shastri’s brief Prime Ministership, the country faced two major
challenges.
 10. 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.
11. The country also faced a war with Pakistan in 1965.
12. Shastri’s famous slogan ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’, symbolised the country’s
resolve to face both these challenges.
13. Shastri’s Prime Ministership came to an abrupt end on 10 January 1966,
when he suddenly expired in Tashkent, then in the USSR and currently the
capital of Uzbekistan.
14. 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

1. Thus the Congress faced the challenge of political succession for the
second time in two years.
2. This time there was an intense competition between Morarji Desai and
Indira Gandhi.
3. Morarji Desai had earlier served as Chief Minister of Bombay state (today’s
Maharashtra and Gujarat) and also as a Minister at the centre.
4. Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, had been Congress
President in the past and had also been Union Minister for Information in
the Shastri cabinet.
5. This time the senior leaders in the party decided to back Indira Gandhi, but
the decision was not unanimous.
6. The contest was resolved through a secret ballot among Congress MPs.
7. Indira Gandhi defeated Morarji Desai by securing the support of more than
two-thirds of the party’s MPs.
8. A peaceful transition of power, despite intense competition for leadership,
was seen as a sign of maturity of India’s democracy.

challenges faced by indira gandhi*

1. It took some time before the new Prime Minister could settle down.
2. While Indira Gandhi had been politically active for very long, she had
served as a minister under Lal Bahadur Shastri only for a short period.
 3. The senior Congress leaders may have supported Indira Gandhi in the
belief that her administrative and political inexperience would compel her
to be dependent on them for support and guidance.
4. Within a year of becoming Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi had to lead the
party in a Lok Sabha election.
5. Around this time, the economic situation in the country had further
deteriorated, adding to her problems.
6. Faced with these difficulties, she set out to gain control over the party and
to demonstrate her leadership skills.

Fourth General Elections, 1967

Context of the Elections
1. In the years leading up to the fourth general elections, the country
witnessed major changes.
2. Two Prime Ministers had died in quick succession, and the new Prime
Minister, who was being seen as a political novice, had been in office for
less than a year.
3. The period was fraught with a grave economic crisis resulting from
successive failure of monsoons, widespread drought, decline in
agricultural production, serious food shortage, depletion of foreign
exchange reserves, drop in industrial production and exports, combined
with a sharp rise in military expenditure and diversion of resources from
planning and economic development.
4. One of the first decisions of the Indira Gandhi government was to devalue
the Indian rupee, under what was seen to be pressure from the US.
5. Earlier one US dollar could be purchased for less than Rs. 5; after
devaluation it cost more than Rs. 7.
6. The economic situation triggered a price rise.
7. People started protesting against the increase in prices of essential
commodities, food scarcity, growing unemployment and the overall
economic condition in the country.
8. Bandhs and hartals were called frequently across the country.
 9. The government saw the protests as a law and order problem and not as
expressions of people’s problems.
10. This further increased public bitterness and reinforced popular unrest.
11. The communist and socialist parties launched struggles for greater
equality.
12. A group of communists who separated from the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) led armed
agrarian struggles and organised peasant agitations.
13. This period also witnessed some of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots since
Independence.

Non-Congressism
1. Opposition parties were in the forefront of organising public protests and
pressuring the government.
2. Parties opposed to the Congress realised that the division of their votes
kept the Congress in power.
3. Thus parties that were entirely different and disparate in their programmes
and ideology got together to form anti-Congress fronts in some states and
entered into electoral adjustments of sharing seats in others.
4. They felt that the inexperience of Indira Gandhi and the internal
factionalism within the Congress provided them an opportunity to topple
the Congress.
5. The socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia gave this strategy the name of
‘non-Congressism’.
6. He also produced a theoretical argument in its defence: Congress rule was
undemocratic and opposed to the interests of ordinary poor people;
therefore, the coming together of the non-Congress parties was necessary
for reclaiming democracy for the people.

Electoral Verdict
1. It was in this context of heightened popular discontent and the polarisation
of political forces that the fourth general elections to the Lok Sabha and
State Assemblies were held in February 1967.
2. The Congress was facing the electorate for the first time without Nehru.
 3. The results jolted the Congress at both the national and state levels.
4. Many contemporary political observers described the election results as a
‘political earthquake’.
5. The Congress did manage to get a majority in the Lok Sabha, but with its
lowest tally of seats and share of votes since 1952.
6. Half the ministers in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet were defeated.
7. The political stalwarts who lost in their constituencies included Kamaraj in
Tamil Nadu, S.K. Patil in Maharashtra, Atulya Ghosh in West Bengal and K.
B. Sahay in Bihar.
8. The dramatic nature of the political change would be more apparent to you
at the State level.
9. The Congress lost the majority in as many as seven States.
10. In two other States defections prevented it from forming a government.
11. These nine States where the Congress lost power were spread across the
country – Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West
Bengal, Orissa, Madras and Kerala.
12. In Madras State (now called Tamil Nadu), a regional party — the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) – came to power by securing a clear majority.
13. The DMK won power after having led a massive anti-Hindi agitation by
students against the centre on the issue of imposition of Hindi as the
official language.
14. This was the first time any non-Congress party had secured a majority of
its own in any State.
15. In the other eight States, coalition governments consisting of different
non-Congress parties were formed.
16. A popular saying was that one could take a train from Delhi to Howrah and
not pass through a single Congress ruled State.
17. It was a strange feeling for those who were used to seeing the Congress in
power.

Coalitions
1. The elections of 1967 brought into picture the phenomenon of coalitions.
 2. Since no single party had a majority, various non-Congress parties came
together to form joint legislative parties (called Samyukt Vidhayak Dal in
Hindi) that supported non-Congress governments.
3. That is why these governments came to be described as SVD
governments.
4. In most of these cases the coalition partners were ideologically
incongruent.
5. The SVD government in Bihar, for instance, included the two socialist
parties – SSP and the PSP – along with the CPI on the left and Jana Sangh
on the right.
6. In Punjab it was called the ‘Popular United Front’ and comprised the two
rival Akali parties at that time – Sant group and the Master group – with
both the communist parties – the CPI and the CPI(M), the SSP, the
Republican Party and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

Defection
1. Another important feature of politics after the 1967 election was the role
played by defections in the making and unmaking of governments in the
States.
2. Defection means an elected representative leaves the party on whose
symbol he/she was elected and joins another party.
3. After the 1967 general election, the breakaway Congress legislators played
an important role in installing non-Congress governments in three States -
Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
4. The constant realignments and shifting political loyalties in this period gave
rise to the expression ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’.

Split in the Congress

Indira vs. the ‘Syndicate’
1. The real challenge to Indira Gandhi came not from the opposition but from
within her own party.
 2. She had to deal with the ‘syndicate’, a group of powerful and influential
leaders from within the Congress.
3. The Syndicate had played a role in the installation of Indira Gandhi as the
Prime Minister by ensuring her election as the leader of the parliamentary
party.
4. These leaders expected Indira Gandhi to follow their advice.
5. Gradually, however, Indira Gandhi attempted to assert her position within the
government and the party.
6. She chose her trusted group of advisers from outside the party.
7. Slowly and carefully, she sidelined the Syndicate.

two challenges*
1. Indira Gandhi thus faced two challenges.
2. She needed to build her independence from the Syndicate.
3. She also needed to work towards regaining the ground that the Congress had
lost in the 1967 elections.
4. Indira Gandhi adopted a very bold strategy.
5. She converted a simple power struggle into an ideological struggle.
6. She launched a series of initiatives to give the government a Left orientation.
7. She got the Congress Working Committee to adopt a Ten Point Programme in
May 1967.
8. This programme included social control of banks, nationalisation of General
Insurance, ceiling on urban property and income, public distribution of food
grains, land reforms and provision of house sites to the rural poor.
9. While the ‘syndicate’ leaders formally approved this Left-wing programme,
they had serious reservations about the same.

Presidential Election, 1969

1. The factional rivalry between the Syndicate and Indira Gandhi came in the
open in 1969.
2. Following President Zakir Hussain’s death, the post of President of India
fell vacant that year.
3. Despite Mrs Gandhi’s reservations the ‘syndicate’ managed to nominate
her long time opponent and then speaker of the Lok Sabha, N. Sanjeeva
Reddy, as the official Congress candidate for the ensuing Presidential
elections.
4. Indira Gandhi retaliated by encouraging the then Vice-President, V.V. Giri,
to file his nomination as an independent candidate.
5. She also announced several big and popular policy measures like the
nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks and the abolition of the
‘privy purse’ or the special privileges given to former princes.
6. Morarji Desai was the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister.
7. On both the above issues serious differences emerged between him and
the Prime Minister resulting in Desai leaving the government.
8. Congress had seen differences of this kind in the past.
9. But this time both the parties wanted a showdown which took place during
the Presidential elections.
10. The then Congress President S. Nijalingappa issued a ‘whip’ asking all the
Congress MPs and MLAs to vote in favour of Sanjeeva Reddy, the official
candidate of the party.
11. Supporters of Indira Gandhi requisitioned a special meeting of the AICC
(that is why this faction came to be known as ‘requisitionists’) but this was
refused.
12. After silently supporting V.V. Giri, the Prime Minister openly called for a
‘conscience vote’ which meant that the MPs and MLAs from the Congress
should be free to vote the way they want.
13. The election ultimately resulted in the victory of V.V. Giri, the independent
candidate, and the defeat of Sanjeeva Reddy, the official Congress
candidate.
14. The defeat of the official Congress candidate formalised the split in the
party.
15. The Congress President expelled the Prime Minister from the party; she
claimed that her group was the real Congress.
16. By November 1969, the Congress group led by the ‘syndicate’ came to be
referred to as the Congress (Organisation) and the group led by Indira
Gandhi came to be called the Congress (Requisitionists).
 17. These two parties were also described as Old Congress and New
Congress.
18. Indira Gandhi projected the split as an ideological divide between socialists
and conservatives, between the pro-poor and the pro-rich.

The 1971 Election and Restoration of Congress

1. The split in the Congress reduced the Indira Gandhi Government to a
minority.
2. Yet her government continued in office with the issue-based support of a
few other parties including the Communist Party of India and the DMK.
3. During this period the government made conscious attempts to project its
socialist credentials.
4. This was also a phase when Indira Gandhi vigorously campaigned for
implementing the existing land reform laws and undertook further land
ceiling legislation.
5. In order to end her dependence on other political parties, strengthen her
party’s position in the Parliament, and seek a popular mandate for her
programmes, Indira Gandhi’s government recommended the dissolution of
the Lok Sabha in December 1970.
6. This was another surprising and bold move.
7. The fifth general election to Lok Sabha was held in February 1971.

The Contest
1. The electoral contest appeared to be loaded against Congress(R).
2. After all, the new Congress was just one faction of an already weak party.
3. Everyone believed that the real organisational strength of the Congress
party was under the command of Congress(O).
4. To make matters worse for Indira Gandhi, all the major non-communist,
non-Congress opposition parties formed an electoral alliance known as the
Grand Alliance.
5. The SSP, PSP, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Swatantra Party and the Bharatiya
Kranti Dal came together under this umbrella.
6. The ruling party had an alliance with the CPI.
 7. Yet the new Congress had something that its big opponents lacked – it had
an issue, an agenda and a positive slogan.
8. The Grand Alliance did not have a coherent political programme.
9. Indira Gandhi said that the opposition alliance had only one common
programme: Indira Hatao (Remove Indira).
10. In contrast to this, she put forward a positive programme captured in the
famous slogan: Garibi Hatao (Remove Poverty).
11. She focused on the growth of the public sector, imposition of a ceiling on
rural land holdings and urban property, removal of disparities in income
and opportunity, and abolition of princely privileges.
12. Through garibi hatao Indira Gandhi tried to generate a support base among
the disadvantaged, especially among the landless labourers, Dalits and
Adivasis, minorities, women and the unemployed youth.
13. 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

1. The results of the Lok Sabha elections of 1971, were as dramatic as was
the decision to hold these elections.
2. The Congress(R)-CPI alliance won more seats and votes than the
Congress had ever won in the first four general elections.
3. The combine won 375 seats in Lok Sabha and secured 48.4 per cent votes.
4. Indira Gandhi’s Congress(R) won 352 seats with about 44 per cent of the
popular votes on its own.
5. Contrast this with the performance of the Congress(O): the party with so
many stalwarts could get less than one-fourth of the votes secured by
Indira Gandhi’s party and win merely 16 seats.
6. With this the Congress party led by Indira Gandhi established its claim to
being the ‘real’ Congress and restored to it the dominant position in Indian
politics.
7. The Grand Alliance of the opposition proved a grand failure.
8. Their combined tally of seats was less than 40.
cumback*
1. Soon after the 1971 Lok Sabha elections, a major political and military
crisis broke out in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
2. The 1971 elections were followed by the crisis in East Pakistan and the
Indo-Pak war leading to the establishment of Bangladesh.
3. These events added to the popularity of Indira Gandhi.
4. Even the opposition leaders admired her statesmanship.
5. Her party swept through all the State Assembly elections held in 1972.
6. She was seen not only as the protector of the poor and the underprivileged,
but also a strong nationalist leader.
7. The opposition to her, either within the party or outside of it, simply did not
matter.
8. With two successive election victories, one at the centre and other at the
State level, the dominance of the Congress was restored.
9. The Congress was now in power in almost all the States.
10. It was also popular across different social sections.
11. Within a span of four years, Indira Gandhi had warded off the challenge to
her leadership and to the dominant position of the Congress party.

Restoration?
1. What Indira Gandhi had done was not a revival of the old Congress party.
2. In many ways she had re-invented the party.
3. The party occupied a similar position in terms of its popularity as in the
past.
4. But it was a different kind of party.
5. It relied entirely on the popularity of the supreme leader.
6. It had a somewhat weak organisational structure.
7. This Congress party now did not have many factions, thus it could not
accommodate all kinds of opinions and interests.
8. While it won elections, it depended more on some social groups: the poor,
the women, Dalits, Adivasis and the minorities.
9. This was a new Congress that had emerged.
10. Thus Indira Gandhi restored the Congress system by changing the nature
of the Congress system itself.
11. Despite being more popular, the new Congress did not have the kind of
capacity to absorb all tensions and conflicts that the Congress system was
known for.
12. 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.
13. The popular unrest and mobilisation around issues of development and
economic deprivation continued to grow.