Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System — Notes

Nehru died in May 1964. Many observers feared for democracy, since founding leaders in other new nations had often been followed by army or one-person rule.

• Gulzarilal Nanda became acting (interim) Prime Minister.
• The Congress president K. Kamaraj consulted senior leaders and Congress MPs.
• Lal Bahadur Shastri was chosen unanimously and took office in June 1964.

The transfer was smooth and showed that the party could choose a successor through its own procedures.

Shastri's term (1964–66): a war with Pakistan in 1965 and a severe food shortage after the monsoon failed. In January 1966 India and Pakistan signed the Tashkent Declaration; Shastri died in Tashkent soon after.

1966: for the first time the leadership was decided by a secret ballot of Congress MPs. Indira Gandhi defeated Morarji Desai and became Prime Minister. She had the backing of the Syndicate, an informal group of senior organisational leaders (K. Kamaraj, S. K. Patil, S. Nijalingappa, N. Sanjiva Reddy, Atulya Ghosh), who expected to guide her.

Two successions in under two years, one by consensus and one by contest, both peaceful.

Background: drought, food scarcity and imports, rising prices, the devaluation of the rupee (1966), strikes and agitations. Indira Gandhi had been Prime Minister for barely a year.

Opposition strategy: non-Congressism, argued by the socialist Ram Manohar Lohia: since the Congress won seats with less than half of the votes, the opposition should unite.

Results: the Congress kept a narrow majority in the Lok Sabha, its weakest so far, but lost power in several states. In Madras the DMK won a majority on its own. Because the shock was so great, the result is often called a political earthquake.

In many states, non-Congress parties formed coalition governments, often called SVD (Samyukt Vidhayak Dal, joint legislature party) governments. Some brought together parties of the right and the left; what they shared was opposition to the Congress.

Defection — a legislator leaving the party on whose ticket he or she was elected — became common. An MLA in Haryana changed sides three times in a fortnight in 1967, giving rise to the phrase "Aya Ram, Gaya Ram". Thin majorities meant that a few defections could topple a government, and several states saw President's Rule.

Rivalry: the Prime Minister increasingly relied on her own advisers and a more radical programme; the Syndicate resisted. The ten-point programme of 1967 already spoke of social control of banks, public distribution and land reform.

Presidential election (August 1969): after President Zakir Husain's death, the official candidate N. Sanjiva Reddy was opposed by the Vice-President V. V. Giri as an independent. Indira Gandhi called for a conscience vote, and Giri won.

Split (November 1969): the Congress president expelled her, and the party divided into the Congress (O) (Organisation) and the Congress (R) (Requisitionists). Her government continued with outside support.

Radical steps: fourteen major banks nationalised (July 1969); privy purses of former princes ended by the Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) after a failed attempt in 1970.

The Lok Sabha was dissolved early (December 1970) and polls were held in March 1971.

• Grand Alliance: Congress (O), Jana Sangh, Swatantra and the Samyukta Socialist Party; message: remove Indira Gandhi.
• Congress (R): slogan garibi hatao (remove poverty), with allies such as the CPI; appeal to the landless, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and the unemployed.

Result: the Congress (R) won about two-thirds of Lok Sabha seats. After the December 1971 war, which led to the independence of Bangladesh, the Congress also won most state elections in 1972.

A restored but different system: dominance returned, but the party now rested on the popular appeal of one leader and direct support from the poor, with less room for factions than in the old Congress system.