The Splits of the Indian National Congress in the 1940s and 1960s and the Consolidation of the Party around the Nehru-Gandhi political Dynasty in domestic and Indian Historiography

Zaitcev Andrei Master's Degree, Department of Modern and Contemporary History, N.I.Lobachevsky National Research Nizhny Novgorod State University 603000, Russia, Nizhegorodskaya oblast', g. Nizhnii Novgorod, ul. Ul'yanova, 2, of. 310 andrey.zaytsev1998@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction The Indian National Congress (INC) is the largest and oldest political party in India.

The party was founded in 1885, gained fame during the national liberation movement in India in the first half of the XX century, which the leaders of this party headed. After India gained independence in 1947, the INC became the party that dominated Indian politics for the next 30 years, until the emergency period of 1975-1977. In the 17 general elections since independence, she has won an absolute majority seven times and led the ruling coalition three more times, leading the central government for more than 54 of India's 75 years of independence. This was facilitated by the fact that the party advocates a secular policy that promotes equal opportunities for the entire population of India, the right to civil freedom and the well-being of the weaker strata and minorities with the support of a mixed economy, reflected the positions of secularism and egalitarianism.

This party is closely connected with the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, which has been leading it since colonial times. Motilal Nehru (1861-1931), founder of the dynasty, lawyer and politician, served as chairman of the party in 1919-1920 and 1928-1929. He was one of the leaders of the National liberation movement of India. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) continued his father's line and became one of the leading politicians not only in India, but throughout the world. Nehru Jr. will head the INC in the 1940s and will remain in charge of the party until his death, with him the independence of India will be proclaimed, and he himself will become the first prime minister of the country, will build a new state with a new economic model that will not resemble either the Western or the Soviet. His business will be continued after his death by his only daughter, Indira Gandhi (1917-1984), who was Prime Minister of India in 1966-1977 and 1980-1984, and subsequently by her children, Sanjay (1946-1980) and Rajiv (1944-1991), and grandchildren Rahul (born 1970) and Priyanka (born 1972) Gandhi. It followed a clear course of building a socialist-style society through economic transformations and the foreign policy doctrine of non-alignment with the actualization, first of all, of India's relations with the countries of South Asia, which caused objections from their opponents in the party.

After independence, during the 1940s and 1960s, the party would consolidate around the Nehru-Gandhi family as a result of several splits. For the Nehru-Gandhi family, the INC was of great importance, since it was the party that determined the strategic line of the dynasty's policy in India, was a mechanism for mobilizing resources, it had great influence and prestige among the population, it was responsible for building a new, modern India, preserving its unity and integrity ^{[1, pp. 320-321]}.

The consolidation of the INC around the Nehru family began after the death of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 as a result of an internal struggle between Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, Gandhi's closest associates who had different views on the future of India. First of all, they concerned the national issue, which was the most acute for India. Patel held extreme right-wing positions on this issue, aligned himself with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whom he called "patriots who love the country", opposed the liberal attitude towards Muslims ^{[1, p. 277]}. Nehru and Patel also held different positions on the Kashmir issue, on the development of relations with China. These contradictions could have led to the first split of the party after independence, but Patel's death in 1950 helped to preserve the unity of the INC.

At the same time, socialists began to leave the INC during the period of Nehru's rivalry with Patel. In 1948, Jayaprakash Narayan and his supporters left the INC and formed their own Socialist Party due to ideological differences with Nehru. Narayan also refused to join the Nehru government because he was not sure of the authorities' interest in carrying out socialist reforms. In the 1950s, together with the Communists, they would become the main opponents of the INC in the parliamentary elections.

In the second half of the 1950s, there was another split in the party, it is associated with the name of Chakrabarti Rajagopalachariya. The first and only governor-general of India after the transformation of the country into a republic joined the Nehru government, but could not find a common language with him because of the difference in political views. Rajagopalacharya advocated the construction of a market economy instead of a mixed one, and believed that progress, well-being and happiness of people can be achieved by giving people maximum freedom with minimal state intervention. The state should replace its intervention by encouraging the Indian tradition of helping other people ^{[2, p. 74]}. He also called communists, not nationalists, as Nehru believed, the greatest danger for India, and criticized the Prime Minister of India for his pro-Soviet position in foreign policy and the doctrine of non-alignment ^{[3, p. 331]}. In 1957, Rajagopalacharya established the Madras Congress Reform Committee. This committee was transformed into the Indian National Democratic Congress Party, which in 1959 became the Swatantra Party, which became the main liberal party of India in the 1960s.

At the same time, in the 1960s, the largest split of the INC occurred after the independence of India. Jawaharlal Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, after becoming Prime Minister of India in 1966, continued her father's domestic and foreign policy aimed at strengthening the construction of a "socialist model of society" and the doctrine of non-alignment. State regulation of the economy under it will only strengthen through the nationalization of banks, insurance, the coal industry, the largest oil companies, state regulation of grain sales and prices for it has begun. The rupee was devalued. In agriculture, the "green revolution" was launched in 1968, the mass introduction of various fertilizers, mechanized agricultural implements, the breeding of new varieties of grain crops to increase their production and solve the food issue. At the beginning of the energy crisis of the 1970s. Indira Gandhi paid special attention to the development of the coal and oil industries. These measures were a response to the accumulated economic problems in India by the mid-1960s caused by rising inflation and food shortages among the population.

However, Indira Gandhi's economic decisions met with serious resistance from the so-called Syndicate led by Morarji Desai, who brought her to power to control her policies. The 1967 parliamentary elections and the unsuccessful result of the INC in them in the form of the loss of an absolute majority of seats in the Lok Sabha led to a rift between Indira Gandhi and the Syndicate, whose leaders mostly lost these elections. The subsequent presidential elections of 1969, where the Prime Minister did not support the candidate nominated by the Syndicate and who lost these elections, led to the final split of the INC and its division into INC (P) and INC (O) (revisionists and the organization, the first faction was headed by Indira Gandhi). The split strengthened the position of the incumbent Prime Minister in power and in the party, and this helped the INC (R) win the 1971 parliamentary elections, but at the same time consolidated the opposition against her.      

This dynasty and its rule in India attracted the attention of many historians in the USSR/Of Russia. A lot of attention was paid to Nehru-Gandhi in the Indian scientific community. In covering the politics of this family, a lot of attention is paid to its party activities, including its role in the splits of the INC in the first decades after the independence of India.

The coverage by domestic Indologists of the splits of the Indian National Congress In Soviet historiography, as L. B. Alaev writes, "the political process of the Nehru period was considered as a struggle of "progressive" forces (Nehru, Krishna Menon and some others) against "reactionary" ones (S. Vallabhbhai Patel, G.B. Pant, P. Tandon, etc.)" ^{[4, p. 225]}.

Soviet scientists criticized Nehru's main opponent in the early years of his reign, Vallabhbhai Patel. He was too right-wing a politician for them, an outspoken supporter of capitalism, relying on the interests of landowners and entrepreneurs, as well as a conservative who called Indian Muslims traitors during the first Indo-Pakistani war. While Nehru was "devoted to the ideal of social justice, the eradication of inequality and exploitation, he enjoyed the support of the democratic circles of the city and village, students, intellectuals, trade unions and peasants who believed his promises of agrarian reforms" ^{[5, p. 35]}, and he treated Muslims as full-fledged citizens. Even their caste origin was compared, Devyatkina described this struggle as a confrontation between a native of the Brahmin caste and an aristocratic family (Nehru) and a representative of the Indian peasantry (Patel). "Different in their social origin, political views, characters, attitude to people, they worked side by side to create the foundation of independent India, although each in his own way imagined the building that would be erected on this foundation" ^{[6, p. 12]}. When comparing Nehru and Patel, Soviet Indologists were on the side of the former, although they noted the latter's organizational abilities that allowed people to rally around him, the ability to competently conduct an internal party struggle. The position of Swatantra, who were considered conservatives associated with the big bourgeoisie of India, was also criticized ^{[7, p. 288]}.

In the INC split of the 1960s, special attention was paid to Morarji Desai, the main opponent of Indira Gandhi. He was criticized in the same way as Patel, called a conservative, a narrow follower of M. K. Gandhi, a man with ambitions and limited horizons, a right-wing oppositionist who supported rich Indian industrialists "associated with monopolies and gravitating towards a pro-Western foreign policy orientation" ^{[8, p. 185]}. For Desai, Indira Gandhi was the main obstacle on the way to power. However, the role of the "Syndicate" in the nomination of Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister of India has not been disputed in historiography.

The largest split of the Congress had several reasons for Soviet researchers. The first reason Soviet experts called the "10-point Program", proclaimed by Indira Gandhi in 1967 after the general elections, providing for the continuation of the policy of nationalization of the economy, in particular the banking system and agricultural reforms, and dissatisfaction with this program by Morarji Desai and the leaders of the "Syndicate", who, as well as the leaders of "Swatantra" were considered the right element in the party. The Soviet authors called the "10-point program" the resurrector of the construction of a socialist society. The second reason is the "Kamaraj plan" (renewal of the INC, the departure of the leading party leaders from government posts and their replacement with new cadres; named after Kumaraswamy Kamaraj, one of the leaders of the "Syndicate"). It was seen as an attempt to abandon the Nehru-Gandhi socialist policy and the INC's shift to the right ^{[5, p. 61]}.

The reason for the consolidation of the INC around Indira Gandhi and the defeat of the "Syndicate" was considered to be the consistent policy of Nehru's daughter, full adherence to the "10-Point Program", as well as her awareness of the need for changes within the party, in particular, ridding the INC of factionalism and the formation of structural unity. A. I. Chicherov writes: "Paralyzed by internal disagreements, the INC could not provide solutions not a single serious problem. It was shaken by discord, giving rise to mass discontent. And this at a time when the growth of economic difficulties, the aggravation of social inequality, national and religious contradictions required thoughtful and effective actions" ^{[9, p. 183]}. Chicherov considered this a deep crisis not only of the party, but of the entire structure of political power in India and the "Nehru course" in particular: "The old power structure ceased to correspond to a different historical situation, the bourgeois revolution that ended, and a new correlation of socio-class, economic and political forces was forming" ^{[9, p. 229]}.

In post-Soviet historiography, there is no sharp criticism of the opponents of the Nehru-Gandhi family: Vallabhbhai Patel, Chakrabarti Rajagopalacharya, Morarji Desai, although there were differences in approaches to politics between the Nehru family and their party opponents. This is especially true of Vallabhbhai Patel: "But despite the differences in approaches to some problems, as well as in working style and temperament, both Congress leaders – Nehru and Patel – stressed that they often complement each other rather than oppose each other" ^{[1, p. 277]}. The conflict with Rajagopalacharia and the Swatantra party was not covered at all, and more attention was paid from the right-wing parties to the nationalist Jana Singh. The party split of the 1960s began to be assessed as an attempt by Indira Gandhi to strengthen personal power and put the INC under his personal control. F. N. Yurlov writes that Indira Gandhi proved herself to be a tough and courageous politician who used various techniques and methods to achieve her goal and showed that she is an independent politician, not a transitional figure. During this split, Indira Gandhi developed her own political pragmatism, "in which ideology began to play an external role — it could be softened or strengthened. Pragmatism and political expediency in its practice were approved as necessary elements of management" ^{[10, p. 80]}.

The Indian view on the problem of INC splits in the 1940s-1960s and its consolidation around Nehru-Gandhi, INC splits were covered in sufficient detail at home during that period and during the reign of Nehru-Gandhi and after him.

It was noted that this family recognized the enormous value of the Congress, which consisted in the fact that it was the most effective tool for maintaining political unity in the country ^{[11, p. 197]}. Therefore, the unity of their party was important for the Nehru family. It is in the party that the well-known Indian publicist Shashi Tharoor will see the source of the Nehru-Gandhi family phenomenon, since the nomination of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi to its leaders is not their own merit, only the top of the INC insisted on this, and the Nehru family itself did not object. Tharoor demonstrated this by the example of the rise of Indira Gandhi: "Jawaharlal did not take any steps to promote her as a possible successor; he did not appoint her to his cabinet, despite public appeals to him from party members...The worst that can be said is that Nehru did not object when others in the Congress Party they pushed his daughter into politics, first as an organizer of the women's wing of the party in 1953 and, most notably, when they elected her president of the Congress Party at the national level in 1959" ^{[12, p. 184]}. For S. S. Gill, they contributed to the ideological consolidation of the party. In them, Nehru took a centrist position in order to avoid radicalization of party ideology and serve the interests of the entire population of India. "Secularism in action should be centrist, since it is based on some type of religious diversity and tolerance in various orthodoxies. And, regarding democracy, it can flourish only in a culture of harmony, nurtured by following the middle course in such a diverse society" ^{[13, p. 47]}.

Sarveppali Gopal, the first Indian biographer of Nehru, identified two main points of political disagreement between Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel: the first was compensation to Indian princes after the liquidation of the principalities: "Patel demanded that the payment of sums to princes for personal expenses as compensation for the right of succession would be guaranteed by the Constitution forever. He considered it so important that, despite his illness, he was going to come from Bombay and personally advocate for the inclusion of this provision in the Legislative Assembly. Nehru and the rest of the cabinet considered it unrealistic for the country to commit itself to paying pensions forever" ^{[14, p. 71]}, the second was the question of expropriation of private property: "Patel sent a letter from Bombay in which he convinced that the right to appropriate fair compensation logically follows from the right to property. To deprive private enterprise of all incentives at this stage is to sign India's death sentence. Nehru suspended the distribution of this letter rather because of strong expressions in favor of private property, and not because he objected to the very principle of compensation" ^{[14, p. 73]}.

The famous Indian historian Ramachandra Guha is of the opinion that Nehru was a bridge between the extremely polar currents in the INC. He saw this as a disadvantage of the first prime minister of India: "Firstly, he was moderate, and the golden mean does not contribute at all to a kind of exciting rhetoric that forces people to act. Secondly, he and his colleagues were much older than their political rivals. In 1949, Nehru himself was 60, the age at which a Hindu man should leave the everyday world and take sannyasa [the stage of abandoning material life and focusing on the spiritual world in Hinduism - Author's note]" ^{[15, p. 115]}. Guha saw the basis of the contradictions between Nehru and Patel in their caste origin, as mentioned above, and differences in lifestyle, where Nehru lived in luxury, and Patel is depicted as a modest workaholic. Guha also noted their political differences: "Patel was friends with capitalists, while Nehru believed in state control over the economy; that Patel was more inclined to support the West in the nascent Cold War; and that Patel was more lenient towards Hindu extremism and tougher towards Pakistan" ^{[15, p. 141]}. The same opinion is shared by Rajmohan Gandhi, the biographer of Vallabhbhai Patel ^{[16, p. 505]}.

Gopal placed more emphasis on the Socialists' exit from the INC. For him, this event became the most important in the internal political struggle in India in the late 1940s - 1950s, since it was a heavy blow for Nehru, who sympathized with their main point of view and had sympathy for many of the leaders of this party ^{[14, p. 59]}. Gopal believed that the main factor in this split was human, since the Socialists decided that Nehru had abandoned his plan of political interaction with them because of his unwillingness to share power. "Perhaps there is no sufficient reason to believe that Nehru preferred to be guided by narrow-party interests, although the suspicions of the socialists were not so far from the truth: the general position taken by Nehru confirms that he was not going to seek cooperation with the socialists at the cost of a split in his own party" ^{[14, p. 198]}. Binay Kumar Singha noted that according to Nehru, the socialists outside the INC "could not offer any positive alternatives and caused the government only minor troubles on minor issues" ^{[17, p. 151]}, thereby leveling the political potential of Jayaprakash Narayan's supporters. The departure of the liberals led by Chakravarti Rajagopalacharia and the creation of the Swatantra Party during the reign of Nehru-Gandhi was not covered. Sarveppali Gopal considered further splits of the party inevitable, since the INC gathered politicians of different religions, peoples, provinces who had their own views on solving India's political problems and did not always follow the slogans and idealistic dogmas of the party's leaders ^{[18, p. 108]}.

Shashi Tharoor expressed regret at the departure of Socialists Jayaprakash Narayan from INC, as the latter was a stronger leader than Nehru, who wanted to be a bridge between the opposite flanks in the party. In his opinion, if the INC had been completely divided on ideological grounds, Jawaharlal Nehru could have left with the Socialists; but he was the prime minister and leader of the party that won the freedom of India, and still sought to represent the various faith currents that supported this cause. "Nehru sought to serve as a bridge between the two main opposing forces in Congress: the right, grouped around Patel and Rajendra Prasad, who were ready to ban trade unions, court the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), dismiss Muslim officials and promote the interests of the Hindu majority; and the left-wing socialists, whose political recipes, according to Jawaharlal himself, "demonstrate a striking lack of responsibility"" ^{[12, p. 127]}. The departure of Rajagopalachariya and the creation of "Swatantra" was, according to Tharoor, evidence of the failure of Jawaharlal Nehru's economic policy, called "reckless planning", as well as Nehru's refusal to build a different economic model. Jawaharlal Nehru bore great personal responsibility for the "recklessness of planning", since it was not only directed and directed by him in accordance with his own beliefs, but also conducted in such a way as to discourage any dissent. In the 1950s, too often opposition to planning was presented as opposition to fundamental national interests and disloyalty to Nehru himself. "Under Nehru, socialism (in the form in which he practiced it) became a national dogma, to which his successors remained faithful long after other developing countries, realizing the folly of his path, took a different path" ^{[12, p. 138]}.

The split of the 1960s was analyzed no less acutely. Inder Malhotra sees Indira Gandhi's reforms as the reason for the split, first of all, the nationalization of banks and the "green revolution", which her opponents were not enthusiastic about, as well as her personnel policy. However, Malhotra noted that one of Indira Gandhi's competitors, Morarji Desai, became Deputy Prime Minister of India in the late 1960s, and this only aggravated the conflict because Desai wanted more. According to the author, Indira Gandhi benefited more from the split of the party, since she began to control the parliament of India, but the number of problems only increased: the "Mute doll" suddenly transformed into a confident, assertive and dominant leader, to which the name "merciless" was also attached. Her mass appeal has never been in doubt. A huge part of the intelligentsia is now closely rallied around her, believing in the 48-year-old Indira as a young symbol of hope and change with shining eyes, especially when compared with old rivals" ^{[19, p. 124]}.

Ram Avtar Sharma saw the cause of the split as the actions of the Syndicate itself, which did not have a sole leader (Kamaraj and Desai were competing with each other), was not united and could not act decisively, and did not have broad popular support. They were going to cash in on the name of Indira Gandhi, her family affiliation, compliance with other party leaders ^{[20, p. 46]}. However, Sharma did not deny the role of nationalization, devaluation of the rupee, the "10-point Program" and other reforms of Indira Gandhi. Sharma also called the split a clash of two personalities — Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai, which was projected as a clash of progressive and reactionary lines in INC. Indira Gandhi "managed to convince the common man that she defends his interests as opposed to the interests of the corrupt elite that ruled India for the last two decades" ^{[20, p. 58]}. A split was inevitable, even desirable for the renewal of the party, but Indira Gandhi chose the wrong way to consolidate the party around herself: she replaced principles with expediency, and political wisdom with the desire to stay in power. However, Sharma also highlights the advantages of this split for Indira Gandhi: the strengthening of her own political positions, the strengthening of socialist sentiments in India, the conclusion of an alliance and the support of Indian communists who had previously opposed the Nehru family, but the main result is the end of intra—party democracy in the INC and its complete political dominance ^{[20, p. 59]}.

For S. S. Gill, this split became a new milestone in the history of the country: "He (the split) marked the abdication of Congress from the principle of consensus and compromise. Now one man's desire for power has crushed the entire opposition and established a style of politics that has changed the face of the Indian state system" ^{[13, p. 207]}, while he calls the split belated, and its result was the strengthening of Indira Gandhi's position and the radicalization of the political elite of the INC.

Pupul Jayakar believed that the main factor of Indira Gandhi's strengthening during the split was her silence and sincerity as a corporate management style: "Silence, which would be opaque, could portend a merciless reaction, and silence, which was clear and transparent, like water in a lake, could calm fears" ^{[21, p. 151]}. She agrees with Gill in assessing the outcome of this split.

For Ramachandra Guha, the crisis of the 1960s was a repeat of the crisis of the 1940s. In both cases, political, economic, and social instability reigned in India, and various conflicts intensified. Guha considers Indira Gandhi's economic transformations to be the reason for the split, in particular, the devaluation of the rupee and the nationalization of banks, which he considers justified and thorough, and their criticism by the "Syndicate", because of which it was not possible to fully implement reforms: "However, in the end, the devaluation was not accompanied by the liberalization of the trade regime. Controls on capital inflows remained in force, and there were no pushes to increase exports. It seems that criticism inside and outside her party prevented Mrs. Gandhi from promoting more thorough reforms" ^{[15, p. 411]}. He believes that she should have publicly declared her independence from the "Syndicate" that elected her to preserve the party's positions, but this did not happen due to the ambiguity of Indira Gandhi's ideological positions. Guha explained the concentration of power in the party in the hands of Indira Gandhi by her belligerence, determination and departure from the traditions of the INC ^{[15, p. 441]}.

Conclusion

From all of the above, it can be concluded that the splits of the INC in the first decades of India's independence and the role of the Nehru-Gandhi family in them, primarily Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, are well studied in both domestic and Indian historiography. The reasons for these splits are primarily the positions of Nehru-Gandhi on the most important issues of India's domestic and foreign policy, and the concentration of power in their hands in the party is explained by the personal qualities of representatives of this family. The main idea of all these studies is all those aspects of political consciousness that have been cultivated and passed down in the Nehru—Gandhi family from generation to generation for decades, and formed the basis of their unified domestic and foreign policy doctrine have become the basis for the concentration of power around this political dynasty in the INC, which they head at the present time.