explain the devolpment of Indian national congress as a political party
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Indian National Congress, Indian political party, founded in 1885. Its founding members proposed economic reforms and wanted a larger role in the making of British policy for India. By 1907, however, the Congress had split into a moderate group led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale , who sought dominion status for India, and a militant faction under Bal Gangadhar Tilak , who demanded self-rule. In 1920 the Congress began a campaign of passive resistance, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , against restrictions on the press and political activities.
Although the Congress claimed to represent all Indians, many Muslims, fearful of the vast Hindu majority, began to withdraw from the Congress. The Congress was divided on approaches to economic reform the conservatives favored cautious reform while the leftists, of which Jawaharlal Nehru was a leader, urged socialism. The great strength of the organization was shown in the provincial elections of 1937.At the outbreak of World War II , the Congress voted for neutrality. When India came under Japanese attack, the Congress demanded immediate concessions from Great Britain toward a democratic government in return for cooperation in the war effort. The British responded by outlawing the organization and arresting its leaders. In the 1946 elections to the Indian constituent assembly, the Congress lost the Muslim vote to the Muslim League it reluctantly accepted the partition of the Indian subcontinent and the formation of the state of Pakistan .After partition the Congress, as the largest party, governed India under Nehru's leadership. The Congress successfully adjusted to its new role as a political party and won the majority of the seats in the next election. It retained this support into the 1960s. After Nehru's death, the party began to lose support. The leadership of Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi , who became prime minister in 1966, was challenged by a powerful right-wing group within the Congress, and in 1969 the party formally split into two factions one led by Morarji Desai , the other (New Congress) by Indira Gandhi.In the 1971 national elections and the 1972 state elections Gandhi's faction won strong victories, but, in a reaction against her emergency rule, it lost the election of 1977. It was the first time the Congress had lost government control since independence. Gandhi (now with a new faction, Congress Indira) returned to power in the 1980 elections, called when the opposition coalition disintegrated.
After her assassination (1984), her son RajivGandhi succeeded to the leadership. Although he led Congress to reelection in 1984, the party was defeated in 1989 because of scandals and became the major opposition party. Following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi during the 1991 election campaign, P. V. Narasimha Rao became head of the party and, after Congress won a plurality in parliament later that year, prime minister. In 1996 scandal again led voters to reject Congress at the polls, but Rao remained party leader. Leadership soon passed to the ineffectual Sitaram Kesri, but in 1998 Rajiv Gandhi's widow, Sonia Gandhi , a political newcomer, was elected head of Congress and had some success in rebuilding party support among Muslims and the poor. Congress nonetheless did poorly in the 1999 elections. In 2004, however, Congress returned to power, but the foreign-born Gandhi declined to lead the new coalition government ManmohanSingh , a former finance minister, became prime minister the party remained in power, with a larger plurality, after the 2009 elections. In 2014, however, Congress and its allies suffered a landslide loss in the parliamentary elections.
The Indian National Congress first convened in December 1885, though the idea of an Indian nationalist movement opposed to British rule dated from the 1850s. During its first several decades, the Congress Party passed fairly moderate reform resolutions, though many within the organization were becoming radicalized by the increased poverty that accompanied British imperialism. In the early 20th century, elements within the party began to endorse a policy of swadeshi (“of our own country”), which called on Indians to boycott of imported British goods and promoted Indian-made goods. By 1917 the group’s “extremist” Home Rule wing, which was formed by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant the previous year, had begun to exert significant influence by appealing to India’s diverse social classes.
In the 1920s and ’30s the Congress Party, led by Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, began advocating nonviolent noncooperation. The new change in tactics was precipitated by the protest over the perceived feebleness of the constitutional reforms enacted in early 1919 (Rowlatt Acts) and Britain’s manner of carrying them out, as well as by the widespread outrage among Indians in response to the massacre of civilians in Amritsar (Punjab) that April. Many of the acts of civil disobedience that followed were implemented through the All India Congress Committee, formed in 1929, which advocated avoiding taxes as a protest against British rule. Notable in that regard was the Salt March in 1930 led by Gandhi. Another wing of the Congress Party, which believed in working within the existing system, contested general elections in 1923 and 1937 as the Swaraj (Home Rule) Party, with particular success in the latter year, winning 7 out of 11 provinces.
When World War II began in 1939, Britain made India a belligerent without consulting Indian elected councils. That action angered Indian officials and prompted the Congress Party to declare that India would not support the war effort until it had been granted complete independence. In 1942 the organization sponsored mass civil disobedience to support the demand that the British “quit India.” British authorities responded by imprisoning the entire Congress Party leadership, including Gandhi, and many remained in jail until 1945. After the war the British government of Clement Attlee passed an independence bill in July 1947, and independence was achieved the following month. In January 1950 India’s constitution as an independent state took effect.
Postindependence dominance of the Nehru clan
From 1951 until his death in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru dominated the Congress Party, which won overwhelming victories in the elections of 1951–52, 1957, and 1962. The party united in 1964 to elect Lal Bahadur Shastri and in 1966 Indira Gandhi (Nehru’s daughter) to the posts of party leader and thus prime minister. In 1967, however, Indira Gandhi faced open revolt within the party, and in 1969 she was expelled from the party by a group called the “Syndicate.” Nevertheless, her New Congress Party scored a landslide victory in the 1971 elections, and for a period it was unclear which party was the true rightful heir of the Indian National Congress label.