Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System

Why this chapter matters for UPSC: Chapter 2 built the "Congress system"; this chapter watches it crack and then return in a different shape. NCERT's questions are precise: how the successions after Nehru and Shastri were managed, how a united opposition and a split inside the party challenged Congress dominance, how Indira Gandhi's new Congress beat both, and whether what came back in 1971 was the same system. Prelims asks the dates and the numbers (1967 seats, the Syndicate's names, Giri against Sanjiva Reddy, bank nationalisation, the 26th Amendment); Mains asks about the origins of coalition politics and defection, the personalisation of party politics, and the difference between the old umbrella Congress and the new leader-centred one, which chapter 6 then connects to the Emergency. The old page on this topic inverted the 1966 succession (it had the Syndicate "initially favouring" Desai), credited the 1971 result with "a majority larger than Nehru's", undercounted the Grand Alliance, and invented compensation for the princes; this page checks every figure against the Election Commission's statistical reports and every legal step against the Supreme Court's own judgments. The chapter is unchanged in substance in the rationalised Reprint 2026-27 apart from added quotation boxes.

🧠 First Principles — Read This First

"After Nehru, what?" NCERT's opening: outsiders doubted that India could manage a democratic succession at all, and feared "a political role for the army"; the 1960s were called "the dangerous decade". Two successions in two years, both peaceful, "proved all the critics wrong". The chapter's first lesson is institutional: a party that could choose Shastri by consensus and Indira Gandhi by secret ballot had the habits a democracy needs.

Dominance ends when the opposition stops splitting its vote. Chapter 2 showed how first-past-the-post turned a divided opposition's majority of votes into a Congress majority of seats. Lohia's non-Congressism was the answer: "the coming together of the non-Congress parties was necessary for reclaiming democracy for the people." In 1967 it worked in the states, and the Congress "could be defeated at the elections. But there was no substitute as yet."

A split can be an opportunity. Indira Gandhi "converted a simple power struggle into an ideological struggle": the Ten Point Programme, bank nationalisation, the privy purse, "Garibi Hatao". She won, and NCERT's last word is the one to remember: she "restored the Congress system by changing the nature of the Congress system itself", into a party that "relied entirely on the popularity of the supreme leader", with "a somewhat weak organisational structure" and fewer factions to absorb conflict. The Emergency (chapter 6) follows from that sentence.

PART 1 — Quick Reference

The Chapter at a Glance

Elections and Numbers (Election Commission of India unless stated)

Dates and Legal Steps (checked against the record named)

PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative

Challenge of Political Succession

Nehru died in May 1964 after more than a year of ill health, and the question "after Nehru, who?" carried a harder one, "after Nehru, what?": would India "be able to manage a democratic succession", or would failure "lead to a political role for the army"? The 1960s were "labelled as the 'dangerous decade'" in which poverty, inequality and communal and regional divisions "could lead to a failure of the democratic project or even the disintegration of the country."

From Nehru to Shastri. The ease of the succession "proved all the critics wrong". K. Kamaraj, the Congress President, consulted party leaders and MPs and found a consensus for Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was "unanimously chosen" leader of the parliamentary party. NCERT's portrait: a non-controversial leader from Uttar Pradesh, a Minister for many years, on whom Nehru "had come to depend a lot" in his last year, known for simplicity and principle, who had earlier "resigned from the position of Railway Minister accepting moral responsibility for a major railway accident". His brief tenure (1964-66) faced two challenges, the economic aftermath of the China war with failed monsoons, drought and "serious food crisis", and the war with Pakistan in 1965; "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan" "symbolised the country's resolve to face both". It ended "abruptly" on 11 January 1966 at Tashkent, where he had gone to sign the agreement with Ayub Khan. The Guardian of 3 June 1964, quoted by NCERT, had already noted that India's new Prime Minister "had been named with more dispatch, and much more dignity, than was the new Prime Minister of Britain."

From Shastri to Indira Gandhi. The second succession in two years was contested: Morarji Desai, former Chief Minister of Bombay State and Union Minister, against Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, a former Congress President (1959) and Shastri's Minister for Information. "This time the senior leaders in the party decided to back Indira Gandhi, but the decision was not unanimous. The contest was resolved through a secret ballot among Congress MPs. Indira Gandhi defeated Morarji Desai by securing the support of more than two-thirds of the party's MPs." A peaceful transition "despite intense competition for leadership" was read as a sign of maturity. NCERT adds the Syndicate's calculation: the senior leaders "may have supported Indira Gandhi in the belief that her administrative and political inexperience would compel her to be dependent on them". Within a year she had to lead the party into a general election "around this time" of a deteriorating economy, and "she set out to gain control over the party and to demonstrate her leadership skills."

Fourth General Elections, 1967

Context. Two Prime Ministers had died in quick succession and the new one, "seen as a political novice", had been in office under a year. The economy was in "grave economic crisis": failed monsoons, drought, falling farm output, food shortage, depleted foreign exchange, falling industrial production and exports, "combined with a sharp rise in military expenditure and diversion of resources from planning". One of the government's first decisions was to devalue the rupee "under what was seen to be pressure from the US"; a dollar that had cost under Rs 5 now cost over Rs 7. Prices rose; people protested "against the increase in prices of essential commodities, food scarcity, growing unemployment"; "bandhs and hartals were called frequently"; the government "saw the protests as a law and order problem and not as expressions of people's problems", which "reinforced popular unrest". The communist and socialist parties "launched struggles for greater equality"; a group that broke from the CPI(M) to form the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) "led armed agrarian struggles" (chapter 6); and the period "witnessed some of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots since Independence."

Non-Congressism. The opposition parties organised the protests and drew a conclusion: "the division of their votes kept the Congress in power." Parties "entirely different and disparate in their programmes and ideology got together to form anti-Congress fronts in some states and entered into electoral adjustments of sharing seats in others", seeing Indira Gandhi's inexperience and the Congress's factionalism as their chance. Ram Manohar Lohia "gave this strategy the name of 'non-Congressism'" and a theory: Congress rule "was undemocratic and opposed to the interests of ordinary poor people; therefore, the coming together of the non-Congress parties was necessary for reclaiming democracy for the people." (NCERT's box on Lohia: among the founders of the Congress Socialist Party, leader of the Socialist and then the Samyukta Socialist Party, Lok Sabha 1963-67, editor of Mankind and Jan, advocate of reservation for backward castes and opponent of English.)

The verdict. The elections of February 1967, "the first time without Nehru", "jolted the Congress at both the national and state levels"; observers called the result "a 'political earthquake'". The Congress kept its Lok Sabha majority "but with its lowest tally of seats and share of votes since 1952" (the Election Commission's figures: 283 of 520 seats and 40.78 per cent of the votes, against 361 and 44.72 per cent in 1962). "Half the ministers in Indira Gandhi's cabinet were defeated"; the fallen stalwarts included Kamaraj in Tamil Nadu, S.K. Patil in Maharashtra, Atulya Ghosh in West Bengal and K.B. Sahay in Bihar. Neville Maxwell wrote in the London Times that "the great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed", a quotation NCERT prints beside the results. In the States the change was "dramatic": the Congress "lost majority in as many as seven States" and in two more "defections prevented it from forming a government", nine in all: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madras and Kerala. In Madras the DMK "came to power by securing a clear majority" after leading "a massive anti-Hindi agitation by students against the centre", the first non-Congress party to win a majority of its own in any State (NCERT's box on C.N. Annadurai: Chief Minister from 1967, DMK founded 1949, opponent of the imposition of Hindi, supporter of greater autonomy for States). Elsewhere non-Congress coalitions formed: "a popular saying was that one could take a train from Delhi to Howrah and not pass through a single Congress ruled State."

Coalitions. With no single party in a majority, "various non-Congress parties came together to form joint legislative parties (called Samyukt Vidhayak Dal in Hindi) that supported non-Congress governments", the SVD governments. The partners "were ideologically incongruent": in Bihar the SSP and PSP with the CPI on the left and the Jana Sangh on the right; in Punjab the "Popular United Front" of the two rival Akali groups (Sant and Master) with the CPI and the CPI(M), the SSP, the Republican Party and the Jana Sangh.

Defection. The other feature of post-1967 politics: "an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he/she was elected and joins another party." Breakaway Congress legislators installed non-Congress governments in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, and "the constant realignments and shifting political loyalties" produced the phrase "Aya Ram, Gaya Ram": Gaya Lal, a Haryana MLA, in 1967 "changed his party thrice in a fortnight, from Congress to United Front, back to Congress and then within nine hours to United Front again!", and when he announced his return to the Congress, Rao Birendra Singh brought him to the Chandigarh press and declared "Gaya Ram was now Aya Ram". "Later, the Constitution was amended to prevent defections": the Fifty-second Amendment's Tenth Schedule, in force from 1 March 1985. Most of the coalition governments "did not survive for long"; they lost majorities, new combinations formed, "or President's rule had to be imposed." The results "proved that the Congress could be defeated at the elections. But there was no substitute as yet."

Split in the Congress

Indira versus the Syndicate. The real challenge "came not from the opposition but from within her own party", the Syndicate: "the informal name given to a group of Congress leaders who were in control of the party's organisation", led by Kamaraj and including S.K. Patil of Bombay city, S. Nijalingappa of Mysore, N. Sanjeeva Reddy of Andhra Pradesh and Atulya Ghosh of West Bengal. Both Shastri and Indira Gandhi "owed their position to the support received from the Syndicate", which "had a decisive say" in her first Council of Ministers and in policy. She "chose her trusted group of advisers from outside the party" and "slowly and carefully ... sidelined the Syndicate." Facing two tasks, independence from the Syndicate and recovery of the ground lost in 1967, she "adopted a very bold strategy. She converted a simple power struggle into an ideological struggle": the Congress Working Committee's Ten Point Programme of May 1967 (social control of banks, nationalisation of general insurance, ceilings on urban property and income, public distribution of foodgrains, land reforms, house sites for the rural poor), which the Syndicate "formally approved" with "serious reservations".

The presidential election of 1969. Rivalry came into the open when President Zakir Hussain died. Over her reservations the Syndicate nominated N. Sanjeeva Reddy, "her long time opponent and then speaker of the Lok Sabha", as the official Congress candidate; she "retaliated by encouraging the then Vice-President, V.V. Giri, to file his nomination as an independent candidate", and "announced several big and popular policy measures like the nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks and the abolition of the 'privy purse'". Morarji Desai, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, differed with her on both and left the government. Nijalingappa, as Congress President, "issued a 'whip' asking all the Congress MPs and MLAs to vote in favour of Sanjeeva Reddy"; her supporters requisitioned a special AICC meeting ("that is why this faction came to be known as 'requisitionists'") and were refused; after "silently supporting V.V. Giri", she "openly called for a 'conscience vote'". Giri won; Reddy lost. "The defeat of the official Congress candidate formalised the split": the Congress President expelled the Prime Minister; she claimed her group was the real Congress; by November 1969 the Syndicate's group was the Congress (Organisation) and hers the Congress (Requisitionists), "Old Congress and New Congress". Indira Gandhi "projected the split as an ideological divide between socialists and conservatives, between the pro-poor and the pro-rich." NCERT prints Nijalingappa's expulsion letter of 11 November 1969: history "is replete with instances of the tragedy that overtakes democracy when a leader who has risen to power on the crest of a popular wave ... becomes a victim of political narcissism and is egged on by a coterie of unscrupulous sycophants".

The 1971 Election and Restoration of Congress

A minority government and a bold dissolution. The split "reduced Indira Gandhi Government to a minority", kept in office by "issue-based support" from the CPI and the DMK. The government "made conscious attempts to project its socialist credentials", campaigned for implementing land-reform laws and legislated further land ceilings. To end its dependence, strengthen its position and "seek a popular mandate for her programmes", the government "recommended the dissolution of the Lok Sabha in December 1970", "another surprising and bold move"; the President dissolved the House on the night of 27 December 1970. NCERT dates the fifth general election to February 1971; the Election Commission's own history says "early 1971".

The contest. The odds looked bad: the new Congress "was just one faction of an already weak party", and "everyone believed that the real organisational strength of the Congress party was under the command of Congress(O)". Worse, "all the major non-communist, non-Congress opposition parties formed an electoral alliance known as the Grand Alliance": the SSP, the PSP, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the Swatantra Party and the Bharatiya Kranti Dal; the ruling party allied with the CPI. But the new Congress "had an issue, an agenda and a positive slogan". Indira Gandhi said the Alliance had one programme, "Indira Hatao"; she offered "Garibi Hatao": growth of the public sector, ceilings on rural land and urban property, removal of disparities in income and opportunity, abolition of princely privileges, aimed at "the landless labourers, Dalits and Adivasis, minorities, women and the unemployed youth". The slogan and its programmes "were part of Indira Gandhi's political strategy of building an independent nationwide political support base." NCERT's cartoon prompt: four decades on, "we still have much poverty around! Was the slogan only an election gimmick?"

The outcome. The results "were as dramatic as was the decision to hold these elections". The Congress (R)-CPI alliance "won more seats and votes than the Congress had ever won in the first four general elections": 375 seats and 48.4 per cent. Congress (R) alone won 352 seats "with about 44 per cent of the popular votes" (the Election Commission's figure is 43.68 per cent). Congress (O), "the party with so many stalwarts", polled less than a quarter of Indira Gandhi's party's votes and won "merely 16 seats"; the Grand Alliance "proved a grand failure", with "less than 60" seats between its partners (the Commission's party totals: Jana Sangh 22, Congress (O) 16, Swatantra 8, SSP 3, PSP 2, BKD 1). With this the Congress led by Indira Gandhi "established its claim to being the 'real' Congress and restored to it the dominant position in Indian politics." Note NCERT's own precision: the combine exceeded every earlier Congress result; Congress (R) alone, at 352, did not exceed 1957's 371 or 1962's 361.

After the victory. Soon after the election came the crisis in East Pakistan and the war that created Bangladesh (chapter 4), which "added to the popularity of Indira Gandhi"; "even the opposition leaders admired her statesmanship"; her party "swept through all the State Assembly elections held in 1972". She was now "the protector of the poor and the underprivileged" and "a strong nationalist leader"; opposition "simply did not matter". Within four years she "had warded off the challenge to her leadership and to the dominant position of the Congress party". NCERT's cartoon captions note the new manner of choosing Chief Ministers.

Restoration? NCERT's answer is the chapter's thesis. What Indira Gandhi did "was not a revival of the old Congress party. In many ways she had re-invented the party." It was as popular as before "but it was a different kind of a party. It relied entirely on the popularity of the supreme leader. It had a somewhat weak organisational structure. This Congress party now did not have many factions, thus it could not accommodate all kinds of opinions and interests." It depended on particular social groups: "the poor, the women, Dalits, Adivasis and the minorities." So "Indira Gandhi restored the Congress system by changing the nature of the Congress system itself." The cost: the new Congress "did not have the kind of capacity to absorb all tensions and conflicts that the Congress system was known for", and as her authority became "unprecedented", "the spaces for democratic expression of people's aspirations actually shrank", while "popular unrest and mobilisation around issues of development and economic deprivation continued to grow", leading to "a political crisis that threatened the very existence of constitutional democracy" (chapter 6). NCERT's exercise 10 quotes Sudipta Kaviraj: during the great victories of the early 1970s, "the Congress party as a political organisation died".

PART 3 — UPSC Integration

Three Frameworks

1. Two challenges, one answer. From outside, non-Congressism (1967); from inside, the Syndicate (1969). Indira Gandhi answered both with the same move, an ideological turn (Ten Point Programme, nationalisation, privy purse, Garibi Hatao) that gave her a direct relationship with voters and left the organisation to her opponents.

2. Votes, seats and coordination. 1962 to 1967: a fall of about four points in vote share cost 78 seats, because the opposition coordinated. 1971: a split party with about 44 per cent won 352 seats, because the Grand Alliance's coordination had no programme and the CPI alliance added seats. First-past-the-post rewards whoever coordinates better.

3. The umbrella and the leader. Old Congress: a coalition of factions that absorbed conflict and competed internally (chapter 2). New Congress: one leader, a declared ideology, a chosen social base, few factions. NCERT's claim that the second "could not accommodate all kinds of opinions and interests" is the hinge between chapters 5 and 6.

Confused Pairs

• 1964 (Shastri, by consensus) vs 1966 (Indira Gandhi, by secret ballot over Desai).
• Non-Congressism (Lohia, 1967) vs the Grand Alliance (1971): the first worked in the States, the second failed nationally.
• Syndicate (Kamaraj, Patil, Nijalingappa, Reddy, Ghosh) vs Desai (Deputy PM and Finance Minister, not a Syndicate member).
• Congress (O), Organisation, "Old" vs Congress (R), Requisitionists, "New".
• Ordinance of 19 July 1969 and Act 22 of 1969 (banks) vs presidential orders of September 1970 (rulers); Cooper (10 February 1970) vs Scindia (15 December 1970).
• 24th Amendment Bill of 1970 (privy purse, failed) vs the 24th Amendment Act of 1971 (Parliament's amending power); 26th Amendment (privy purse abolished, 28 December 1971).
• Congress (R)-CPI combine 375 seats, 48.4 per cent vs Congress (R) alone 352, about 44 per cent.

Exam Strategy

• Prelims: memorise the Elections and Numbers table and the Dates and Legal Steps table; the Syndicate's five names; the Ten Point Programme's items; the nine States of 1967; the Grand Alliance's five parties; the Tenth Schedule's date.
• Mains: use NCERT's phrases as anchors ("political earthquake", "non-Congressism", "requisitionists", "conscience vote", "restored the Congress system by changing the nature of the Congress system itself"); give the legal sequence for nationalisation and the privy purse; end any answer on 1971 with the "Restoration?" judgment and its cost.
• Avoid: "the Syndicate chose Desai"; "Gaya Lal switched thrice in a day"; "princes were compensated"; "1971 was Congress's biggest ever win"; "the Grand Alliance won fewer than 40 seats"; calling the 1970 recognition orders an ordinance in your own voice (attribute the word to NCERT if you use it).
• Cross-reading: chapter 2 (the system that cracked), chapter 4 (Tashkent, Bangladesh), chapter 6 (the Emergency as the sequel), Class XI Indian Constitution at Work chapters 4 and 9 (the President's election; the amendments of 1971).

Practice Questions

NCERT's exercises, worked

1. (a): the Congress won the Lok Sabha but lost power in nine States.
2. (a) Syndicate: iv; (b) Defection: i; (c) Slogan: ii; (d) Anti-Congressism: iii.
3. (a) Lal Bahadur Shastri; (b) the Grand Alliance of 1971, as Indira Gandhi characterised its programme; (c) Indira Gandhi.
4. (a) is correct: NCERT says the Alliance was "non-communist, non-Congress". (b) is wrong (it "did not have a coherent political programme"); (c) is wrong (the CPI was outside it, allied with the Congress).
5. (a) Fast and unifying, but concentrates power in one person; (b) democratic, but can silence minorities within the party; (c) transparent, but slow and divisive if used for everything; (d) draws on experience, but risks a Syndicate of elders overriding members. NCERT's own example is the 1966 secret ballot, a mix of (b) and (c).
6. (c), (d) and (e) were reasons: mobilisation of regional, ethnic and communal groups; unity among non-Congress parties (non-Congressism); internal differences and factionalism in the Congress. (a) is only partly true (Nehru was gone, but Indira Gandhi's popularity was still to be tested); (b) is wrong: the split came in 1969, after the election.
7. The Ten Point Programme and its left turn; bank nationalisation and the abolition of privy purses; "Garibi Hatao" and its appeal to the poor, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and the young; the 1971 victory and the Bangladesh war; the 1972 State sweep.
8. An informal group of senior leaders who controlled the party organisation (Kamaraj, Patil, Nijalingappa, Reddy, Ghosh); it installed Shastri and Indira Gandhi, shaped her first ministry and policy, nominated Reddy in 1969 and, after losing, became the Congress (O).
9. The presidential election of 1969: the official candidate against the independent backed by the Prime Minister; the whip, the refused requisition, the "conscience vote", Giri's victory and the expulsion. Behind it, the Syndicate's reservations about the Ten Point Programme, bank nationalisation and the privy purse.
10. (a) Nehru led "a federal, democratic and ideological formation"; Indira Gandhi made the party "highly centralised and undemocratic" and turned ideology into "a mere electoral discourse". (b) Because, amid its greatest electoral victories, the party "as a political organisation died": slogans replaced programmes and the organisation gave way to the leader. (c) Other parties also became leader-centred, slogan-driven and dependent on social coalitions rather than organisation; the pattern spread with the "new, populist politics".

Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers)

11. "The elections of 1967 proved that the Congress could be defeated; the elections of 1971 proved that it could not yet be replaced." Discuss with reference to non-Congressism and the Grand Alliance. (GS1, 15 marks)
12. Trace the sequence of events from the Ten Point Programme of May 1967 to the formation of the Congress (O) and the Congress (R) in November 1969. What converted a struggle for power into an ideological divide? (GS1, 10 marks)
13. Examine the legal history of the abolition of privy purses from the 1970 Amendment Bill to Article 363A. What does it show about the relationship between electoral mandates and constitutional change? (GS2, 10 marks)
14. "Indira Gandhi restored the Congress system by changing the nature of the Congress system itself." Explain NCERT's statement and its implications for the crisis of 1975. (GS1, 15 marks)

📦 Revision Capsule

Sources

• NCERT, Politics in India Since Independence (Class XII), ch. 5 "Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System", Reprint 2026-27: ncert.nic.in PDF.
• Election Commission of India, Statistical Report on General Elections, 1962, to the Third Lok Sabha, vol. I; 1967, Fourth Lok Sabha, vol. I; 1971, Fifth Lok Sabha, vol. I: ECI statistical reports.
• Rustom Cavasjee Cooper v. Union of India, Supreme Court, 10 February 1970: Indian Kanoon.
• Madhav Rao Jivaji Rao Scindia v. Union of India, Supreme Court, 15 December 1970: Indian Kanoon.
• The Constitution of India, as on 11 November 2025 (Arts 291 and 362 omitted and 363A inserted by the Twenty-sixth Amendment, w.e.f. 28 December 1971; Art 366(22); the Tenth Schedule, w.e.f. 1 March 1985): Legislative Department PDF.
• Prime Minister's Office, former Prime Ministers: Gulzari Lal Nanda.
• Reserve Bank of India, History, Brief Chronology of Events 1960 to 1971 (6 June 1966 devaluation).
• Election Commission of India, Leap of Faith: Journey of Indian Elections, 2nd ed., vol. 2: p. 84 (the 1970 dissolution and the 1971 election) and p. 213 (the 1969 presidential election).
• Sadiq Ali v. Election Commission of India, Supreme Court, 11 November 1971: Indian Kanoon.