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Political leadership used elections both to promote national consolidation and to legitimize its policies of integration. As observed by Ashok Mehta, "The parliament acted as a great unifier of the nation".
The success of Congress as the dominant pary in the electoral system has led many to term the initial years of the republic as the Congress System. This, was attributed to the electoral success of the Congress as well as the weakness of the opposition during these years. In the three general elections following indepndence, the Congress gained overwhelming majority. It won three out of every four seats even when it did not win half the total votes polled. In 1952, for example the Congress obtained 45% of the total votes, but it managed to win 74% of the seats. In the first general elections, out of 489 seats of Lok Sabha, the Congress had won 364 seats. In the next two general elections of 1957 and 1962 respectively, it had secured 371 and 361 seats out of total 494. It had also formed government at the state level throughout the country except exceptions such as Kerala in 1957.
India is not the only exception to have experienced the dominance of one party. We can see example of ‘one party dominance’ in other parts of the world as well. The key difference however was that while in many other countries democratic values and norms were compromised, in India these values and norms were upheld. In some countries like China, Cuba and Syria the constitution allows only a single party to rule the country. Some others like Myanmar, Belarus, Egypt and Eritrea were effectively one party state due to legal and military measure. Until a few years ago, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan were also effectively one party dominant states.
The Congress party had inherited the legacy of national movement led by the India National Congress and its stalwarts such as Nehru and Sardar Patel were widely respected figures among the masses. , Due to its strong organizational network inherited form the days of the freedom movement, throughout the country, it reached out to the masses instantly and connected well. It was simply not possible for other political parties to organize themselves in such a short time and gaining confidence of the masses.
During the freedom struggle movement, INC had adopted inclusive approach and accepted membership of all strata of the society. After independence, the Congress maintained the same characteristics. The Congress also remained sensitive to and functioned as the medium for the reconciliation, accommodation and adjustment of the diverse and divergent class, sectional and regional interests.
The Congress was an ideological coalition. It accommodated the revolutionary and pacifist, conservative and radical, extremist and moderate and the right, left and all shades of the centre. The coalitional nature of the Congress party tolerated and encouraged various factions and instead of being a weakness, internal factionalism became the strength of the Congress. The system of factions functioned as balancing mechanism within the ruling party.
In the first decade of electoral competition, the Congress acted both as the ruling party as well as the opposition. Hence, noted political scientist, Mr. Rajni Kothari termed this period of Indian Politics as “The Congress system".
Due to the great performance of the Congress party, all opposition parties achieved only a token representation in the Lok Sabha and State assemblies during the “Congress system”, period. In the beginning, reflecting true sense of democracy in India, there was high degree of mutual respect between the Congress and opposition leaders. Non-Congress political leaders