History of the Indian National Congress
The
Formation and early days (1885–1905)
Retired British
Hume embarked on an endeavor to get an organization started. He began by reaching-out to selected alumni of the University of Calcutta. In an 1883 letter, he wrote that,
"Every nation secures precisely as good a Government as it merits. If you, the picked men, the most highly educated of the nation, cannot, scorning personal ease and selfish objects, make a resolute struggle to secure greater freedom for yourselves and your country, a more impartial administration, a larger share in the management of your own affairs, then we, your friends, are wrong and our adversaries right, then are Lord Ripon's noble aspirations for your good fruitless and visionary, then, at present at any rate all hopes of progress are at an end[,] and India truly neither desires nor deserves any better Government than she enjoys."[2][page needed]
In May 1885, Hume secured the viceroy's approval to create an "Indian National Union", which would be affiliated with the government and act as a platform to voice Indian public opinion. Hume and a group of educated Indians came together on 12 October and published "An Appeal from the People of India to the Electors of Great Britain and Ireland" which asked British voters in the 1885 British general election to support candidates sympathetic to the positions of Indians. These included opposition to taxation of India to finance British campaigns in Afghanistan, and support for legislative reform in India.[3][page needed] The appeal however, was a failure, and was interpreted by many Indians as "a rude shock, but a true realization that they had to fight their battles alone."[4][page needed]
On 28 December 1885, the Indian National Congress was founded at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay, with 72 delegates in attendance. Hume assumed office as the General Secretary, and Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee of Calcutta was elected president.[3][page needed] Besides Hume, two additional British members (both Scottish civil servants) were members of the founding group, William Wedderburn and Justice (later, Sir) John Jardine. The other members were mostly Hindus from the Bombay and Madras Presidencies.[3][page needed] [clarification needed]
Policies of Indian National Congress during 1885–1905
Between 1885 and 1905, the Indian National Congress passed several resolutions in its annual sessions. Through the resolutions, the humble demands made by Congress included civil rights, administrative, constitutional and economic policies. A look at the resolution passed on these methods would be given an idea the directions of Congress programs were taking.
a) Civil Rights: The Congress leaders realized the value of freedom of speech and press, the right to organize processions, meetings and similar other rights.
b) Administrative: The Congress leaders urged the government to remove certain administrative abuses and run public welfare measures. They put emphasis on the appointment of Indians in the government services. Specific proposals are made to open agricultural banks for the relief of peasantry. The Congress leaders also raised the voice of protest against the discriminatory laws enacted by the government.
c) Constitutional: The humble demand made by the early Congress leaders in respect to constitutional matters were: to increase the power of legislative councils; to include elected Indian representatives. It must be mentioned here that the British government of India paid scant regard to the above demands made by Congress.
d) Economic: In the economic sphere, Congress blamed the economic policies of the British government that resulted in rising property prices and other economic issues which affected the Indian people. The Congress also put forward certain specific suggestions for the economic improvement of the country and her people. These included the introduction of modern industry, Indianization of public services, etc. The Congress also demanded the abolition of salt tax for the benefit particularly of the poor section of the people
Economic Policy
The INC's economic policies include:
- Resetting economic policies to reiterate the advantages of an open market economy
- Supporting wealth creation
- Reducing inequality between the rich, the middle classes, and the poor
- Accelerating growth driven by the private and viable public sector enterprises
Foreign Policy
Even before
Muslim Response
Many Muslim community leaders, like the prominent educationalist
The ordinary people of India were not informed of or concerned about its existence on the whole, for Congress never attempted to address the issues of poverty, lack of health care, social oppression, and the prejudiced negligence of the people's concerns by the British government. The perception of bodies like the Congress was that of an elitist, then educated and wealthy people's institution.[7]
Rise of Indian nationalism
The first spurts of nationalistic sentiment that rose amongst Congress members were when the desire to be represented in the bodies of government, to have a say, a vote in the lawmaking and issues of administration of India. Congressmen saw themselves as loyalists, but wanted an active role in governing their own country, albeit as part of the Empire.[8]
This was personified by Dadabhai Naoroji, considered by many as the eldest Indian statesman. Naoroji went as far as contesting, successfully, an election to the British House of Commons, becoming its first Indian member. That he was aided in his campaign by young, aspiring Indian student activists like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, describes where the imagination of the new Indian generation lay.[9]
The moderates, led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, and Dadabhai Naoroji, held firm to calls for negotiations and political dialogue. Gokhale criticized Tilak for encouraging acts of violence and disorder. The Congress of 1906 did not have public membership, and thus Tilak and his supporters were forced to leave the party.[10]
With Tilak's arrest, all hopes for an Indian offensive were stalled. The Congress lost credit with the people. Muslims formed the All India Muslim League in 1906, considering the Congress as completely unsuitable for Indian Muslims.[8]
World War I: the battle for the soul
When the British entered the British Indian Army into World War I, it provoked the first definitive, nationwide political debate of its kind in India. Voices calling for political independence grew in number.[11]
The divided Congress re-united in the pivotal
But another Indian man with another way was destined to lead the Congress and the Indian struggle.
Champaran and Kheda
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who later on became more popular as Mahatma Gandhi, had success in defeating the British in Champaran and Kheda, giving India its first victory in the struggle for freedom.[15] Then Indian National Congress had supported that movement; Indians gained confidence in the working of that organization that the British could be thwarted through that organization, and millions of young people from across the country flooded into Congress membership.[citation needed]
The Battle for the soul
A whole class of political leaders disagreed with Gandhi. Bipin Chandra Pal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, Bal Gangadhar Tilak all criticized the idea of civil disobedience. But Gandhi had the backing of the people and a whole new generation of Indian nationalists.[13]
In a series of sessions in 1918, 1919 and 1920, where the old and the new generations clashed in famous and important debates, Gandhi and his young supporters imbued the Congress rank-and-file with passion and energy to combat British rule directly.
Lokmanya Tilak, whom Gandhi had called The Father of Modern India died in 1920, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale had died four years earlier.[17] Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai and some other stalwarts backed Gandhi as they were not sure that they can lead the people like Tilak and Gokhale. Thus it was now entirely up to Gandhi's Congress to show the way for the nation.[citation needed]
The Mahatma Gandhi era
Gandhiji dominated the Indian freedom struggle from 1919 to 1948. That is why this period is known as the Gandhian era in Indian history. During this time, Mahatma Gandhi dominated the Indian National Congress, which in turn was at the forefront of the Indian freedom struggle.
Gandhi joined in 1915 and left the Indian National Congress in 1923.
Expansion and re-organization
Few years after the World War, the Congress expanded considerably, owing to public excitement after Gandhi's success in Champaran and Kheda. A whole new generation of leaders arose from different parts of India, who were committed Gandhians
Gandhi transformed the Congress from an elitist party based in the cities, to an organization of the people:[citation needed]
- Membership fees were considerably reduced.
- Congress established a large number of state units across India – known as Pradesh Congress Committees – based on its own configuration of India's states on basis of linguistic groups. PCCs emerged for British India.
- All former practices distinguishing Congressmen on basis of caste, ethnicity, religion and sex were eliminated – all-India unity was stressed.
- Native tongues were given official use and respect in Congress meetings – especially Urdu renamed by Gandhi as Hindustani, which was adopted for use by the All India Congress Committee.
- Leadership posts and offices at all levels would be filled by elections, and not by appointments. This introduction of democracy was vital in rejuvenating the party, giving voice to ordinary members as well as valuable practice for Indians in democracy.
- Eligibility for leadership would be determined by how much social work and service a member had done, not by his wealth or social standing.[citation needed]
Social development
During the 1920s, M.K. Gandhi encouraged tens of thousands of Congress volunteers to embrace a wide variety of organized tasks to address major social problems across India. Under the guidance of Congress committees and Gandhi's network of ashrams in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu, the Congress attacked:[citation needed]
- Untouchability and caste discrimination
- Alcoholism
- Unhygienic conditions and lack of sanitation
- Lack of health care and medical aid
- Purdah and the oppression of women
- Illiteracy, with the organization of national schools and colleges
- Poverty, with proliferating cottage industries
This profound work by M. K. Gandhi impressed the people of India particularly, formations of ashrams, that in later period he was mentioned as Mahatma, Great soul, by way of honor, by people of India.
Ascendance to power (1937–1942)
Under the
The radical followers of Subhas Chandra Bose, believers in socialism and active revolution would ascend in the hierarchy with Bose's 1938 election to the Congress presidency.[citation needed]
Traditionalists
According to one approach, the traditionalist point of view, though not in a political sense, was represented in Congressmen like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, Purushottam Das Tandon, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Maulana Azad, who were also associates and followers of Gandhi. Their organizational strength, achieved through leading the clashes with the government, was undisputed and proven when despite winning the 1939 election, Bose resigned from the Congress presidency because of the lack of confidence he enjoyed amongst national leaders. A year earlier, in the 1938 election, however, Bose had been elected with the support of Gandhi. Differences arose in 1939 on whether Bose should have a second term. Jawaharlal Nehru, who Gandhi had always preferred to Bose, had had a second term earlier. Bose's own differences centred on the place to be accorded to non-violent as against revolutionary methods. When he set up his Indian National Army in South-east Asia during the Second World War, he invoked Gandhi's name and hailed him as the Father of The Nation.[citation needed] It would be wrong to suggest that the so-called traditionalist leaders looked merely to the ancient heritage of Indian, Asian or, in the case of Maulana Azad and
The final battles
The last important episodes in the Congress involved the final step to independence, and the division of the country on the basis of religions.[citation needed]
Quit India
Indian National Army Trials
During the
Some members of the Congress initially supported the sailors who led the
Partition of India
Within the Congress, the Partition was opposed by
1947–1952: transformation
Constitution
In the Assembly and Constitution debates, the Congress attitude was marked by inclusiveness and liberalism. The Government appointed some prominent Indians who were Raj loyalists and liberals to important offices, and did not adopt any punitive control over the Indian civil servants who had aided the Raj in its governance of India and suppression of nationalist activities.[citation needed]
A Congress-dominated Assembly adopted
The Congress stood firm on its fundamental promises and delivered a Constitution that abolished untouchability and discrimination based on caste, religion or gender. Primary education was made a right, and Congress governments made the zamindar system illegal, created minimum wages and authorized the right to strike and form labor unions.[citation needed]
Leadership change
In 1947, the Congress presidency passed upon
However, a tug of war began between Nehru and his socialist wing, and Patel and Congress traditionalists broke out in 1950's race. Nehru lobbied intensely to oppose the candidacy of
With Patel's tacit support (especially in Patel's home state of Gujarat, where due to Patel's work, Kripalani received not one vote) Tandon won a tight contest, and Nehru threatened to resign. With Patel's convincing, Nehru did not quit.[citation needed]
However, with Patel's death in 1950, the balance shifted permanently in Nehru's favor. Kripalani, C. Rajagopalachari and Tandon were marginalized, and the Congress Party's election fortunes began depending solely on Nehru's leadership and popularity. With the 1952 election sweep, the Congress became India's main political party.[citation needed]
Nehru and Shastri era (1952–1966)
From 1951 until his death in 1964,
During his period in office, there were four known assassination attempts on Nehru.
In 1964, Nehru died because of an aortic dissection, raising questions about the party's future.[32][33][34] Following the death of Nehru, Gulzarilal Nanda was appointed as the interim Prime Minister on 27 May 1964, pending the election of a new parliamentary leader of the Congress party who would then become Prime Minister.[35] During the leadership contest to succeed Nehru, the preference was between Morarji Desai and Lal Bahadur Shashtri. Eventually, Shashtri was selected as the next parliamentary leader thus the Prime Minister. Kamaraj was widely credited as the "kingmaker" in for ensuring the victory of Lal Bahadur Shastri over Morarji Desai.[36]
As prime minister, Shastri retained most of members of Nehru's
Shastri became a national hero following victory in the
Indira era (1966–1984)
In 1967, following a poor performance in the
"India might be an ancient country but was a young democracy and as such should remain vigilant against the domination of few over the social, economic or political systems. Banks should be publicly owned so that they catered to not just large industries and big businesses but also agriculturists, small industries and entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the private banks had been functioning erratically with hundreds of them failing and causing loss to the depositors who were given no guarantee against such loss."
—Gandhi’s remarks after the nationalisation of private banks.[57]
In the mid-term parliamentary elections held in 1971, the Gandhi-led Congress (R) won a landslide victory on a platform of progressive policies such as the elimination of poverty (
Due to Sino-Indian War 1962, India faced a huge budgetary deficit resulting in its treasury being almost empty, high inflation, and dwindling forex reserves. The brief War of 1962 exposed weaknesses in the economy and shifted the focus towards the defence industry and the Indian Army. The government found itself short of resources to fund the Third Plan (1961–1966). Subhadra Joshi a senior party member, proposed a non-official resolution asking for the nationalisation of private banks stating that nationalisation would help in mobilising resources for development.[60] In July 1969, Indira Gandhi through the ordinance nationalised fourteen major private banks.[61] After being re-elected in 1971 on a campaign that endorsed nationalisation, Indira Gandhi went on to nationalise the coal, steel, copper, refining, cotton textiles and insurance industries. The main reason was to protect employment and the interest of the organised labour.[60]
On 12 June 1975, the
Gandhi's premiership witnessed increasing turmoil in
Rajiv Gandhi and Rao era (1984–1998)
In 1984, Indira Gandhi's son Rajiv Gandhi became nominal head of Congress, and went on to become prime minister upon her assassination.[79] In December, he led Congress to a landslide victory, where it secured 401 seats in the legislature.[80] His administration took measures to reform the government bureaucracy and liberalise the country's economy.[81] Rajiv Gandhi's attempts to discourage separatist movements in Punjab and Kashmir backfired. After his government became embroiled in several financial scandals, his leadership became increasingly ineffectual.[82] Gandhi was regarded as a non-abrasive person who consulted other party members and refrained from hasty decisions.[83] The Bofors scandal damaged his reputation as an honest politician, but he was posthumously cleared of bribery allegations in 2004.[84] On 21 May 1991, Gandhi was killed by a bomb concealed in a basket of flowers carried by a woman associated with the Tamil Tigers.[85] He was campaigning in Tamil Nadu for upcoming parliamentary elections. In 1998, an Indian court convicted 26 people in the conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi.[86] The conspirators, who consisted of Tamil militants from Sri Lanka and their Indian allies, had sought revenge against Gandhi because the Indian troops he sent to Sri Lanka in 1987 to help enforce a peace accord there had fought with Tamil Militant guerrillas.[87][88]
Rajiv Gandhi was succeeded as party leader by
Future prime ministers
By 1996, the party's image was suffering from allegations of corruption, and in elections that year, Congress was reduced to 140 seats, its lowest number in the Lok Sabha to that point. Rao later resigned as prime minister and, in September, as party president.[99] He was succeeded as president by Sitaram Kesri, the party's first non-Brahmin leader.[100] During the tenure of both Rao and Kesri, the two leaders conducted internal elections to the Congress working committees and their own posts as party presidents.[101]
INC (1998–present)
The 1998 general elections saw Congress win 141 seats in the Lok Sabha, its lowest tally until then.[102] To boost its popularity and improve its performance in the forthcoming election, Congress leaders urged Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's widow, to assume leadership of the party.[103] She had previously declined offers to become actively involved in party affairs and had stayed away from politics.[104] After her election as party leader, a section of the party that objected to the choice because of her Italian ethnicity broke away and formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by Sharad Pawar.[105] Sonia Gandhi struggled to revive the party in her early years as its president; she was under continuous scrutiny for her foreign birth and lack of political acumen. In the snap elections called by the
UPA Governments (2004–2014)
For the 2004 general election, Congress forged alliances with regional parties including the NCP and the
During its first term in office, the UPA government passed several social reform bills. These included an
Defeats at national level (2014–present)
By the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party had lost much of its popular support, mainly because of several years of poor economic conditions in the country, and growing discontent over a series of corruption allegations involving government officials, including the 2G spectrum case and the Indian coal allocation scam.[116][117] Congress won only 44 seats in the Lok Sabha, compared to the 336 of the BJP and its allies[118] The UPA suffered heavy defeat, which was its worst-ever performance in a national election with its vote share dipping below 20 per cent for the first time.[119] Narendra Modi succeeded Singh as Prime Minister as the head of the National Democratic Alliance. Sonia Gandhi retired as party president in December 2017, having served for a record nineteen years. She was succeeded by her son Rahul Gandhi, who was elected unopposed in the 2017 INC presidential election.[111]
Rahul Gandhi resigned from his post after the 2019 Indian general election, due to the party's dismal performance.[120] Following Gandhi's resignation, party leaders began deliberations for a suitable candidate to replace him. The Congress Working Committee met on 10 August to make a final decision on the matter and passed a resolution asking Sonia Gandhi to take over as interim president until a consensus candidate could be picked.[121][122] Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha.[123] Gaurav Gogoi is deputy leader in Lok Sabha, Ravneet Singh Bittu is whip.[124] Based on an analysis of the candidates' poll affidavits, a report by the National Election Watch (NEW) and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) says that, the Congress has highest political defection since 2014. According to the report, a total of 222 electoral candidates have left the Congress to join other parties during polls held between 2014 and 2021, whereas 177 MPs and MLAs quit the party.[125] Defection resulted loss of its established governments in Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Puducherry (UT), and Manipur.
In September 2022, the party launched the
In July 2023, the congress, along with 25 political parties made an opposition unity alliance named the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (known by its backronym as the I.N.D.I.A. alliance) for the 2024 general election against the NDA government. The alliance includes major national and regional parties such as the Trinamool Congress, AAP, RJD, CPIM, and DMK.
See also
- Indian nationalism
- Indian independence movement
- Satyagraha
- Gandhism
- Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance
Notes
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Works cited
- Mahendra Prasad Singh (1981). Split in a Predominant Party: The Indian National Congress in 1969. Abhinav Publications. ISBN 978-81-7017-140-9.
Further reading
- Patel: A Life Rajmohan Gandhi
- My Autobiography, or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi
- Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Narhari Parikh