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www.GOALias.blogspot.com36 Politics in India since IndependenceRafi Ahmed Kidwai(1894-1954):Congress leader fromU.P.; Minister in U.P.in 1937 and againin 1946; Minister forCommunications inthe first ministry offree India; Food andAgriculture Minister,1952-54.Earlier we hadcoalition in aparty, now wehave coalition ofparties. Does itmean that we havehad a coalitiongovernment since1952?The roots of this extraordinary success of the Congressparty go back to the legacy of the freedom struggle. Congresswas seen as inheritor of the national movement. Manyleaders who were in the forefront of that struggle were nowcontesting elections as Congress candidates. The Congresswas already a very well-organised party and by the time theother parties could even think of a strategy, the Congresshad already started its campaign. In fact, many partieswere formed only around Independence or after that. Thus,the Congress had the ‘first off the blocks’ advantage. Bythe time of Independence the party had not only spreadacross the length and breadth of the country as we hadseen in the maps but also had an organisational networkdown to the local level. Most importantly, as the Congresswas till recently a national movement, its nature was allinclusive.All these factors contributed to the dominance ofthe Congress party.Congress as social and ideological coalitionYou have already studied the history of how Congress evolvedfrom its origins in 1885 as a pressure group for the newlyeducated, professional and commercial classes to a massmovement in the twentieth century. This laid the basis forits eventual transformation into a mass political party andits subsequent domination of the political system. Thus the Congressbegan as a party dominated by the English speaking, upper caste,upper middle-class and urban elite. But with every civil disobediencemovement it launched, its social base widened. It brought togetherdiverse groups, whose interests were often contradictory. Peasantsand industrialists, urban dwellers and villagers, workers and owners,middle, lower and upper classes and castes, all found space in theCongress. Gradually, its leadership also expanded beyond the uppercaste and upper class professionals to agriculture based leaders witha rural orientation. By the time of Independence, the Congress wastransformed into a rainbow-like social coalition broadly representingIndia’s diversity in terms of classes and castes, religions and languagesand various interests.Many of these groups merged their identity within the Congress.Very often they did not and continued to exist within the Congressas groups and individuals holding different beliefs. In this sense theCongress was an ideological coalition as well. It accommodated therevolutionary and pacifist, conservative and radical, extremist andmoderate and the right, left and all shades of the centre. The Congresswas a ‘platform’ for numerous groups, interests and even politicalparties to take part in the national movement. In pre-Independencedays, many organisations and parties with their own constitution andorganisational structure were allowed to exist within the Congress.