Evaluation

Though by 1939 internal strifes, opportunism and hunger for power had started surfacing among Congressmen, yet they were able to utilise council work to their advantage to a great extent. The 28-month Congress rule was also significant for the following reasons.

● The contention that Indian self-government was necessary for radical social transformation got confirmed.

● Congressmen demonstrated that a movement could use state power to further its ends without being co-opted.

● The ministries were able to control communal riots.

● The morale of the bureaucracy came down.

● Council work helped neutralise many erstwhile hostile elements (landlords, etc).

● People were able to perceive the shape of things to come if independence was won.

● Administrative work by Indians further weakened the myth that Indians were not fit to rule.

The Congress ministries resigned in October 1939 after the outbreak of the Second World War.

The huge Congress victory in the elections had aroused the hopes of the industrial working class; there was increased militancy and industrial unrest in Bombay, Gujarat, the United Provinces and Bengal at a time when the Congress was drawn into a closer friendship with Indian capitalists. This resulted in what appeared to be an anti-labour shift in Congress attitudes that led to the Bombay Traders Disputes Act in 1938. The Congress leadership was also faced with another dilemma: how to react to the situation in the princely states— should the Congress support the Prajamandal movement for greater democracy or not.

In the meanwhile, the All India Muslim League, annoyed with the Congress for not sharing power with them established the Pirpur Committee in 1938 to prepare a detailed report on the atrocities supposedly committed by the Congress ministries. In its report the committee charged the Congress with interference in the religious rites, suppression of Urdu in favour of Hindi, denial of proper representation and of the oppression of Muslims in the economic sphere.

The Congress was forced to realise that being in power and actually running the administration was not easy, and all sections of populations had such high expectations as could not be fulfilled all at once.