Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System

Chapter 2 described the ‘Congress system’ of the 1950s. In the 1960s it was challenged from outside by a stronger, less divided opposition and from inside, as the party could no longer contain all its differences. This chapter explains the transition after Nehru, how opposition unity and the Congress split threatened Congress dominance, how a new Congress under Indira Gandhi overcame the challenge, and how new policies and slogans ‘restored’ the system.

• Builds on Chapter 2 (the Congress system and opposition parties) and Chapter 4 (the 1965 and 1971 wars), and leads into Chapter 6 (the crisis of democratic order — the Emergency) and Chapter 8 (coalition politics).
• Pairs with Indian Constitution at Work: Chapter 4 (Executive — the presidential election of 1969), Chapter 5 (Legislature — anti-defection law, Leader of the Opposition), Chapter 9 (amendments — privy purses, bank nationalisation and the courts) and Chapter 7 (Federalism — President's rule).
• UPSC: Mains 2013 on ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’; Prelims on the first non-Congress State governments (1987) and the first recognised Leader of the Opposition (1989). Defection law and the Tenth Schedule are tested from Indian Constitution at Work.

• Two smooth successions: Shastri by consensus (1964), Indira Gandhi by secret ballot over Morarji Desai (January 1966).
• Shastri: drought, food crisis, 1965 war, ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’; died at Tashkent, 11 January 1966.
• 1967: ‘political earthquake’ — lowest Congress Lok Sabha tally since 1952; lost power in 9 States; DMK majority in Madras; SVD coalitions; defections.
• Lohia's non-Congressism: disparate parties unite because divided votes kept the Congress in power.
• Syndicate vs Indira: Ten Point Programme (1967), bank nationalisation and privy purses, V.V. Giri beats Sanjeeva Reddy (1969) → split into Congress (O) and (R).
• 1971: ‘Garibi Hatao’ vs ‘Indira Hatao’; Congress(R) 352, with CPI 375; Congress(O) 16; Grand Alliance <60 — a restored but changed Congress.

Nehru died in May 1964 after more than a year of illness. Beyond ‘after Nehru, who?’ lay a deeper question: after Nehru, what? Outsiders doubted that India's democracy would survive; like many new nations it might fail to manage a democratic succession, and the army might step in; the new leaders might not handle poverty, inequality and communal and regional divisions. The 1960s were called the ‘dangerous decade’.

From Nehru to Shastri. The succession proved the critics wrong. Congress President K. Kamaraj consulted leaders and MPs and found a consensus for Lal Bahadur Shastri, unanimously chosen leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. A non-controversial leader from U.P., long a minister under Nehru, known for simplicity and principle, Shastri had once resigned as Railway Minister taking moral responsibility for a major accident. As PM (1964–66) he faced the economic after-effects of the China war, failed monsoons, drought and a serious food crisis, and the 1965 war with Pakistan; his slogan ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ captured the resolve to meet both. He died suddenly at Tashkent on 11 January 1966, where he had signed the agreement ending the war.

From Shastri to Indira Gandhi. This time there was intense competition between Morarji Desai — former Chief Minister of Bombay State and Union minister — and Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, a former Congress President and Information Minister under Shastri. Senior leaders backed Indira Gandhi, though not unanimously; in a secret ballot of Congress MPs she won the support of more than two-thirds. A peaceful transfer despite intense competition was seen as a sign of democratic maturity. The seniors may have backed her believing her inexperience would make her depend on them; within a year she had to lead the party into an election, amid worsening economic conditions, and set out to gain control of the party.

1967 is a landmark in India's electoral history. In the run-up, two Prime Ministers had died in quick succession, and a PM seen as a political novice had been in office for less than a year. The economy was in grave crisis: successive monsoon failures, widespread drought, falling farm output, serious food shortages, depleted foreign-exchange reserves, falling industrial production and exports, and a sharp rise in military spending diverted from planning. One of the new government's first decisions was to devalue the rupee — in NCERT's words, under what was seen to be pressure from the US: a dollar that had cost less than ₹5 now cost more than ₹7.

Prices rose; people protested against costly essentials, food scarcity and unemployment; bandhs and hartals were frequent. NCERT says the government treated the protests as a law-and-order problem rather than expressions of people's problems, which deepened bitterness. Communist and socialist parties launched struggles for equality; a group that broke away from the CPI(M) to form the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) led armed agrarian struggles (Chapter 6); and the period saw some of the worst Hindu–Muslim riots since independence.

Non-Congressism. Opposition parties led the protests and realised that the division of their votes kept the Congress in power. So parties with entirely different programmes and ideologies formed anti-Congress fronts in some States and made seat-sharing arrangements in others, seeing Indira Gandhi's inexperience and Congress factionalism as their chance. The socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia named the strategy ‘non-Congressism’ and argued that since Congress rule was undemocratic and against the interests of ordinary poor people, the coming together of non-Congress parties was necessary to reclaim democracy for the people.

The fourth general elections to the Lok Sabha and Assemblies were held in February 1967, the Congress facing voters without Nehru for the first time. Observers called the results a ‘political earthquake’. The Congress kept a Lok Sabha majority, but with its lowest tally of seats and votes since 1952; half of Indira Gandhi's ministers lost, and stalwarts such as Kamaraj (Tamil Nadu), S.K. Patil (Maharashtra), Atulya Ghosh (West Bengal) and K.B. Sahay (Bihar) were defeated.

The change was more dramatic in the States. The Congress lost its majority in seven States, and in two others defections prevented it from forming a government. These nine — Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madras and Kerala — spanned the country. In Madras, the DMK won a clear majority after leading a massive student anti-Hindi agitation — the first time any non-Congress party had won a majority of its own in any State. The other eight had coalition governments of non-Congress parties. People joked that one could take a train from Delhi to Howrah without passing through a single Congress-ruled State.

Coalitions. With no single party in a majority, non-Congress parties formed joint legislature parties — Samyukt Vidhayak Dal — so these were called SVD governments. Most partners were ideologically incongruent: Bihar's SVD included the socialist SSP and PSP with the CPI on the left and the Jana Sangh on the right; Punjab's ‘Popular United Front’ joined the two rival Akali parties (Sant and Master groups) with the CPI, CPI(M), SSP, Republican Party and Jana Sangh.

Defection. Defection — an elected representative leaving the party on whose symbol he or she was elected for another — shaped the making and unmaking of State governments after 1967. Breakaway Congress legislators helped install non-Congress governments in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Constant realignments gave rise to the phrase ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’. Most non-Congress coalitions did not last: they lost majorities, and either new combinations formed or President's rule was imposed. The 1967 results proved the Congress could be beaten — but there was no substitute yet.

The real challenge came not from the opposition but from within. The ‘Syndicate’ — powerful leaders who controlled the party organisation — had helped install Indira Gandhi and expected her to follow their advice. Gradually she asserted herself, chose trusted advisers from outside the party, and sidelined the Syndicate. She faced two tasks: building independence from the Syndicate and regaining the ground lost in 1967. NCERT says she adopted a bold strategy — converting a power struggle into an ideological struggle by giving government policy a Left orientation. In May 1967 the Congress Working Committee adopted a Ten Point Programme: social control of banks, nationalisation of general insurance, ceilings on urban property and income, public distribution of food grains, land reforms and house sites for the rural poor. The Syndicate formally approved it but had serious reservations.

The presidential election of 1969. After President Zakir Hussain died in 1969, the Syndicate, despite Indira Gandhi's reservations, made her long-time opponent, Lok Sabha Speaker N. Sanjeeva Reddy, the official Congress candidate. She retaliated by encouraging Vice-President V.V. Giri to stand as an independent, and announced big popular measures — nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks and the abolition of the privy purse. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Morarji Desai differed sharply on both and left the government. Congress President Nijalingappa issued a whip for Reddy; Indira Gandhi's supporters requisitioned a special AICC meeting (hence ‘requisitionists’), which was refused; the PM, after silently supporting Giri, openly called for a ‘conscience vote’. Giri won; the official candidate lost.

The defeat formalised the split. The Congress President expelled the Prime Minister; she claimed her group was the real Congress. By November 1969 the Syndicate's group was called the Congress (Organisation) and hers the Congress (Requisitionists) — also the Old and New Congress. Indira Gandhi projected the split as an ideological divide between socialists and conservatives, the pro-poor and the pro-rich.

The split left Indira Gandhi's government a minority, sustained by issue-based support from parties including the CPI and the DMK. It projected its socialist credentials and pushed implementation of land reform laws and further land-ceiling legislation. To end dependence on others and seek a mandate, the government recommended dissolution of the Lok Sabha in December 1970 — another bold move. The fifth general election followed in 1971.

The contest seemed loaded against the Congress (R), a faction of a weakened party, while the organisation was thought to be with the Congress (O). All the major non-communist, non-Congress parties formed the Grand Alliance — NCERT lists the SSP, PSP, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Swatantra and Bharatiya Kranti Dal; the ruling party allied with the CPI. But the new Congress had an issue, an agenda and a positive slogan; the Grand Alliance had no coherent programme. Indira Gandhi said the alliance had one common programme — ‘Indira Hatao’ (Remove Indira) — and offered her own: ‘Garibi Hatao’ (Remove Poverty): growth of the public sector, ceilings on rural land and urban property, removing disparities in income and opportunity, and abolishing princely privileges. Through it she sought a base among the landless, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and unemployed youth — an independent nationwide support base.

The outcome. The Congress(R)–CPI alliance won more seats and votes than the Congress had in any of the first four elections: 375 seats and 48.4% of votes; the Congress(R) alone won 352 seats with about 44%. The Congress (O), with so many stalwarts, won less than a quarter of Indira Gandhi's party's votes and just 16 seats. The Grand Alliance won fewer than 60. Indira Gandhi's Congress established its claim to be the ‘real’ Congress. Soon after came the East Pakistan crisis and the 1971 war (Chapter 4), which added to her popularity — even opposition leaders admired her statesmanship — and her party swept the State Assembly elections of 1972. Seen as protector of the poor and a strong nationalist leader, within four years she had warded off the challenges to her leadership and to Congress dominance.

Did Indira Gandhi restore the Congress system? NCERT's answer: she did not revive the old party; she re-invented it. The party was as popular as before but different: it relied on the popularity of a supreme leader; its organisation was somewhat weak; it had few factions and so could not accommodate all opinions and interests; and it depended more on particular groups — the poor, women, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities. ‘Thus Indira Gandhi restored the Congress system by changing the nature of the Congress system itself.’

Despite greater popularity, the new Congress could not absorb tensions and conflicts as the old system had. As the party consolidated and Indira Gandhi gained unprecedented authority, NCERT says, the spaces for democratic expression of people's aspirations actually shrank, while unrest over development and deprivation kept growing — leading to the political crisis of the next chapter.

Try each first. Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 are also in the self-check.

Numbers

One-liners

• After Nehru, who? — and, more seriously, after Nehru, what?
• Shastri by consensus (1964); Indira Gandhi by secret ballot (1966).
• 1967: a ‘political earthquake’ — Congress lost nine States.
• Non-Congressism: divided votes kept the Congress in power.
• SVD governments were ideologically incongruent; defections made and unmade them.
• Indira Gandhi turned a power struggle into an ideological struggle.
• 1969: Giri vs Reddy → Congress (O) vs Congress (R).
• Garibi Hatao vs Indira Hatao — 1971 restored dominance, but in a changed party.

Traps to avoid

• In 1967 the Congress kept its Lok Sabha majority; it lost power in nine States.
• The 1969 split came after the 1967 election — it was not a reason for the 1967 losses.
• The DMK (1967) was the first non-Congress party with a majority of its own in a State; the first non-Congress State government is usually dated to Kerala 1957.
• V.V. Giri won as an independent; Sanjeeva Reddy was the official Congress candidate.
• The Grand Alliance was non-communist; the CPI was allied with the Congress (R).
• Privy purses were abolished by the 26th Amendment (1971), not by the 1970 order.
• The 1971 general election was held in March 1971 (NCERT says February).
• ‘Indira Hatao’ was Indira Gandhi's description of the opposition's programme, not an official opposition slogan.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Firsts: the first non-Congress State government (1987 — Kerala 1957 in the key; the DMK in 1967 was the first single-party non-Congress majority); the first recognised Leader of the Opposition, Ram Subhag Singh of the Congress (O), 1969 (1989).
• Likely areas: the 1969 presidential election (Giri, independent, second preferences), bank nationalisation (14 banks, 1969), privy purses (26th Amendment), anti-defection (52nd Amendment, Tenth Schedule — tested from Indian Constitution at Work).

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1 2013: a critical note on ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ — its origin in 1965 (war and food crisis), its link to the Green Revolution and food self-sufficiency, and its later adaptations; assess both its mobilising power and its limits.
• Answer frame for 1964–72: succession tests → 1967 crisis and non-Congressism → coalitions and defections → Syndicate vs Indira, the 1969 split → 1971 and ‘Garibi Hatao’ → a restored but centralised Congress. Give each side's stated case (Syndicate and Indira Gandhi; Kaviraj's critique and the pro-poor defence) and avoid present-day comparisons.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

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