36   Politics in India sinc Independence

Politics in India sinc Independence Earlier we had coalition in a party, now we have coalition of parties. Does it mean that we have had a coalition government since ? had already started its campaign. In fact, many parties were formed only around independence or after that. Thus, the Congress had the ‘first off the blocks’ advantage. By the time of independence the party had not only spread across the length and breadth of the country as we had seen in the maps but also had an organisational network down to the local level. Most importantly, as the Congress was till recently a national movement, its nature was all-inclusive. All these factors contributed to the dominance of the Congress party. Congress as social and ideological coalition You have already studied the history of how Congress evolved from its origins in as a pressure group for the newly educated, professional and commercial classes to a mass movement in the twentieth century. This laid the basis for its eventual transformation into a mass political party and its subsequent domination of the political system. Thus the Congress began as a party dominated by the English speaking, upper caste, upper middle-class and urban elite. But with every civil disobedience movement it launched, its social base widened. It brought together diverse groups, whose interests were often contradictory. Peasants and industrialists, urban dwellers and villagers, workers and owners, middle, lower and upper classes and castes, all found space in the Congress. Gradually, its leadership also expanded beyond the upper caste and upper class professionals to agriculture based leaders with a rural orientation. By the time of independence, the Congress was transformed into a rainbow-like social coalition broadly representing India’s diversity in terms of classes and castes, religions and languages and various interests. Many of these groups merged their identity within the Congress. Very often they did not and continued to exist within the Congress as groups and individuals holding different beliefs. In this sense the Congress was an ideological coalition as well. It accommodated the revolutionary and pacifist, conservative and radical, extremist and moderate and the right, left and all shades of the centre. The Congress was a ‘platform’ for numerous groups, interests and even political parties to take part in the national movement. In pre-independence days, many organisations and parties with their own constitution and organisational structure were allowed to exist within the Congress. Rafi Ahmed Kidwai ( - ): Congress leader from U.P.; Minister in U.P. in and again in ; Minister for Communications in the first ministry of free India; Food and Agriculture Minister, - .