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Era of One-party Dominance
Congress was a social and ideological coalition of different groups, peasants, industrialists, upper and lower classes and castes, conservatives and radicals. Its coalition like character accommodated all. Congress Party has to aviod any extreme position and strike a balance on almost all issues. Even oppositions issues were included in its ideology and programme. The coalition nature of Congress led to greater tolerance of differences within the Congress. Similarly there were many factions within the Congress based on ideological or personal ambitions.
As a result of policy of tolerance and management of different factions, even if a group was not happy with the policy of the party, it would remain inside the party and fight the other groups rather than leaving the party and becoming an 'opposotion'.
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“Patel, the organisational man of the Congress; wanted to purge the Congress of other political groups and sought to make of it a cohesive and disciplined political party. He ...sought to take the Congress away from its all–embracing character and turn it into a close-knit party of disciplined cadres. Being a ‘realist’ he looked more for discipline than for comprehension. While Gandhi took too romantic a view of “carrying on the movement”, Patel’s idea of transforming the Congress into strictly political party with a single ideology and tight discipline showed an equal lack of understanding of the eclectic role that the Congress, as a government, was to he called upon to perform in the decades to follow.” — Rajni Kothari
(a) Why does the author think that Congress should not have been a cohesive and disciplined party?
(b) Give some examples of the eclectic role of the Congress party in the early years.
(c) Why does the author say that Gandhi’s view about Congress future was romantic ?
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