what is role of congress in development of India?
Answers
It is more than a hundred years old party. The led India's struggle for independence, and vowed to do so using non-violence, satyagraha, and civil disobedience. The remained committed to that. India's independence struggle is unique in the history of humankind. And remember, it was against the mightiest empire the world has ever seen.
Mahatma Gandhi wanted to dissolve Congress as a political party once independence was obtained, and the party workers to go to villages and work as volunteers. But there was no other party that could have stepped into that vacuum.
India was the world's poorest, unhealthiest and most illiterate country at that time. The average life span of an Indian was a mere 31 years. Over 80% of the people could not read or write. There wasn't enough food to feed 320 million people. Only a few cities had electricity, in parts of the cities. There was no industry worth the name, except for a few cotton & jute mills, and there was no money to import & pay for even essentials.
From that base, Nehru charted the growth path for India. Invested in education and health care (including many IITs and IIMs); worked at create a "scientific temper" in a society full of superstitions and unfounded beliefs; created what he called the temples of modern India, which included the four huge (for those times) steel plants, the Bhakra-Nangal and Damodar Valley power and mega-irrigation projects, and many more investments in the public sector.
As important, if not more, he and Dr Ambedkar laid the foundation for a democratic, republican India. Nehru further reinforced it with zamindari abolition and re-distribution of land to cultivators, thus empowering a hundred million farmers in one go. It is this action that makes us stand tall as the world's largest republic today.
There were huge centrifugal energies threatening to tear India apart. Forces of religion, caste, language, and race. The world had given India 10 to 15 years before tearing apart into 600 countries. Nehru built pressure relief valves into the system, giving dissenters space to vent themselves out.
He was succeeded for a short period by Shastri, most of whose time went in fighting the war with Pakistan. We had a terrible food shortage at the time, and it was he who said that if we all fast for a day every week, there will be no shortage. He led by fasting twice a week, and the nation followed. The able people fasted twice a week so that the children and the seniors would not have to, and we ended up with a food surplus.
Indira Gandhi was a very different person. She was put in as leader by the old men of Congress, thinking she would be a puppet in their hands. She turned the tables, kicked them out, and became the despotic leader of Congress. She centralized all powers into herself, dismantling all the state leaders on whom the party had relied till then. She leaned leftward in her economic policies, and all businesses were controlled by licences and permits. That led to a huge regime of corruption.
Her major achievement was the breaking up of Pakistan. India's support in the civil war and liberation movement of Bangladesh, followed by Army action, was instrumental in that, and in making our eastern borders safer.
There were huge hopes from Rajiv Gandhi, who won a 75% majority in the elections following her assassination. The kind of hopes people had from Modi in 2014. After a spectacular start, where he could do no wrong, he tripped up midway into his term of office, and lost the next election.
In 1991, when the Congress came back to power under Narasimha Rao, the country was technically bankrupt. We were despairing and feeling absolutely hopeless, like a patient waiting for death to come and relieve him of pain. And then, almost overnight, the game and the playing field changed. In one stroke, the economy was freed and entrepreneurs, who were zoo animals, challenged to unleash their animal spirits. India arose and captured the opportunity.
Not as much as we could have, for we still had (and continue to have) highly restrictive labor and land laws. We completely missed the manufacturing bus (China boarded that, as had Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Asean earlier), but our services sector roared ahead, capitalizing on the big pool of tech manpower and knowledge workers whose foundations had been laid by Nehru & reinforced by succeeding PMs.
Congress has always had centrist economic policies, a bit leftward during Indira Gandhi's times. It has always believed in re-distribution of incomes and wealth, and has provided subsidized access to food, education, and health care to the poor. It has always said that you cannot ask a hungry person to wait for economic growth because that person does not know the meaning of "wait", his or her time frame for existence is till the next meal.
hope it helps...ik its long but interesting