Chapter 5 — Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System

When Nehru passed away in May 1964, Congress president K. Kamraj consulted party leaders and found consensus in favour of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was unanimously elected leader of the Congress parliamentary party and became the next Prime Minister. Shastri led the country through a food crisis and a war with Pakistan in 1965, famously coining the slogan 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan.' He died suddenly in Tashkent on 11 January 1966 after signing an agreement with Pakistan's President Muhammad Ayub Khan to end the war.

After Shastri's death, there was an intense competition between Morarji Desai and Indira Gandhi for Congress leadership. Senior party leaders backed Indira Gandhi, but the decision was not unanimous; the contest was resolved through a secret ballot among Congress MPs. Indira Gandhi defeated Morarji Desai by securing the support of more than two-thirds of the party's MPs. She had previously served as Congress President and as Union Minister for Information in the Shastri cabinet.

The 1967 fourth general elections shook the Congress dominance that had existed since 1952. Congress managed to get a majority in the Lok Sabha but with its lowest tally of seats and share of votes since independence. Half the ministers in Indira Gandhi's cabinet were defeated, including stalwarts like Kamaraj in Tamil Nadu, S. K. Patil in Maharashtra, and Atulya Ghosh in West Bengal. More dramatically, Congress lost majority in seven states and was prevented from forming government in two more due to defections, losing power in nine states altogether.

The nine states where Congress lost power were Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madras (now Tamil Nadu), and Kerala. A popular saying at the time was that one could take a train from Delhi to Howrah without passing through a single Congress-ruled state. In Madras, the DMK secured a clear majority—the first time any non-Congress party had won a majority on its own in any state.

Non-Congressism was a political strategy coined by socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia. It called for ideologically different and even opposing non-Congress parties to come together to form anti-Congress fronts in some states and seat-sharing arrangements in others. Lohia argued that Congress rule was undemocratic and opposed to the interests of ordinary poor people, and that non-Congress unity was necessary to reclaim democracy. Parties felt that Indira Gandhi's inexperience and internal Congress factionalism gave them an opportunity.

After the 1967 elections, where no single non-Congress party had a majority in many states, various non-Congress parties formed joint legislative parties called Samyukt Vidhayak Dal (SVD in Hindi) to support non-Congress governments. These coalitions were often ideologically incongruent—for example, in Bihar the SVD included two socialist parties (SSP and PSP), the CPI on the left, and Jana Sangh on the right. In Punjab it was called the 'Popular United Front' and included two rival Akali factions, both communist parties, the SSP, the Republican Party, and Jana Sangh.

The phrase originated from Gaya Lal, an MLA in Haryana, who changed his party three times in a single fortnight in 1967—from Congress to United Front, back to Congress, and then within nine hours back to United Front again. When Gaya Lal declared his intention to join Congress, the Congress leader Rao Birendra Singh brought him to the Chandigarh press and declared 'Gaya Ram was now Aya Ram.' The phrase became a widely used term to describe the practice of frequent floor-crossing by legislators; the Constitution was later amended to prevent defections.

The Syndicate was an informal name for a group of powerful Congress leaders who controlled the party organisation. It was led by K. Kamraj, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and then Congress president, and included S. K. Patil of Bombay, S. Nijalingappa of Mysore, N. Sanjeeva Reddy of Andhra Pradesh, and Atulya Ghosh of West Bengal. The Syndicate had backed Indira Gandhi as PM, expecting her to be dependent on them; instead, she sidelined them and adopted a left-leaning Ten Point Programme that included social control of banks and nationalisation of General Insurance, which the Syndicate formally approved but had serious reservations about.

The split was triggered by the 1969 presidential election. After President Zakir Hussain's death, the Syndicate nominated N. Sanjeeva Reddy as the official Congress candidate despite Indira Gandhi's reservations. In retaliation, Indira Gandhi encouraged Vice-President V. V. Giri to file as an independent, announced the nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks and the abolition of the privy purse, and openly called for a 'conscience vote' allowing Congress MPs and MLAs to vote freely. Giri won; Congress president Nijalingappa expelled Indira Gandhi. By November 1969 the party had formally split into Congress (Organisation) and Congress (Requisitionists).

The privy purse was a hereditary government allowance given to former princely rulers when their states acceded to India, measured on the extent, revenue, and potential of the merging state. These privileges were not consistent with constitutional principles of equality and social justice. Following the 1967 elections, Indira Gandhi supported abolition of privy purses; a constitutional amendment in 1970 failed in the Rajya Sabha and a presidential ordinance was struck down by the Supreme Court. She made it a major election issue in 1971, and after Congress's landslide victory, the Constitution was amended to remove all legal obstacles to abolition.

The Grand Alliance was an electoral alliance of the major non-communist, non-Congress opposition parties formed ahead of the 1971 Lok Sabha elections. It brought together the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP), Praja Socialist Party (PSP), Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), Swatantra Party, and Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD). Indira Gandhi argued the Alliance had only one common programme—'Indira Hatao' (Remove Indira)—while she offered the positive 'Garibi Hatao' slogan. The Alliance proved a grand failure; their combined tally of seats was less than 60.

The results were dramatic. The Congress (R)-CPI alliance won 375 seats and secured 48.4 per cent of votes. Indira Gandhi's Congress (R) alone won 352 seats with about 44 per cent of the popular vote. Congress (O), which held the party's traditional organisational strength and many stalwarts, won merely 16 seats—less than one-fourth of the votes secured by Congress (R). The Grand Alliance combined won fewer than 60 seats. These results restored Congress to its dominant position in Indian politics.

The chapter argues it was not a simple revival but a re-invention. While Congress regained its dominant electoral position, the new Congress relied entirely on the popularity of the supreme leader rather than a strong organisational structure. It did not accommodate many factions or all kinds of opinions and interests. It depended on particular social groups—the poor, women, Dalits, Adivasis, and minorities—rather than being a broad-church party. The chapter concludes that Indira Gandhi restored the Congress system by changing the very nature of the Congress system itself.

Yes, the NCERT PDF for this chapter is available free on cbseprepmaster.com — no sign-up or account is required to read or download it.