Issues During 28 Months Of Congress Rule 1937

On 10 July 1937, Jawaharlal Nehru, as President of the Congress, sent a circular to all Congressmen emphasising that organisational and other work outside the legislature would continue to be the Congress's main occupation because "legislative activity would be of little value without it," and that "the two forms of activity must be coordinated together and the masses should be kept in mind." The masses must take the initiative.”

 

•    In fact, the issue examines the state's role in modern society, whether capitalist or socialist. Furthermore, part of the strategy for increasing Congress influence, or rather hegemony, among the people is contingent on the party leading the national movement demonstrating its ability to govern and rule. Existing laws were colonial laws at the time. 

 

•    Furthermore, it was unavoidable that, on the one hand, the long suppressed masses would exert pressure on the Ministries to have their demands met as soon as possible, especially because they saw the Congress Ministries as having a "sense of ownership," while, on the other hand, the Ministries' satisfaction of these demands would be slow due to the constraints inherent in working. 

 

•    The issue was perhaps presented as a simple solution for Congressmen committed to nonviolence, but there were many other Congressmen — Communists, Socialists, Royists, and Revolutionary Terrorists, for example — and non-Congressmen who were not so committed, who told that expanded civil liberties should be used to turn the masses toward more militant or even violent forays. Is it possible for governance and tolerance, rather than promotion, of violent forms of protest to coexist?

 

•    While many Congressmen agitated from the perspective of accepting the Congress Ministries as their own and their role as one of strengthening them and the Congress through popular agitation while avoiding situations where punitive action by the government would be necessary, others were out to expose the Congress Ministries' "breaches of faith and promises" and show tip. 

 

•    Furthermore, members of Congress such as C. Rajagopalachari and K.M. Munshi did not hesitate to use their respective state apparatuses to repress political opponents. Unfortunately, historians have not adequately explored the full dimensions of this dilemma thus far. They can now be compared to the functioning of the Communists and other radical parties as ruling parties in several states of the Indian Union after 1947, or as parts of ruling groups as seen in France or Portugal, or as rulers in socialist countries.

 

•    The establishment of Congress Ministries and the broadening of civil liberties sparked popular fervour around the world. Kisan sabhas sprang up all over the country, and trade union activity and membership increased dramatically.

 

•    Student and youth movements resurfaced and grew in strength. The state people's movement received a significant boost. The left-wing parties were able to grow significantly. Despite a Central Government ban, the Communist Party of India was able to publish The National Front, its weekly organ, from Bombay. The Congress Socialist and several other journals were published in Indian languages by the CSP. The example of Kirti Lehar, which the Kirti Communists of Punjab brought out of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, because they couldn't do so in Unionist-ruled Punjab, is of particular interest.

 

•    Many popular movements inevitably clashed with the Congress governments. Despite the fact that peasant agitations typically took the form of massive demonstrations and spectacular peasant marches, the kisan movement in Bihar frequently clashed with the Ministry, particularly when the Kisan Sabha asked peasants not to pay rent or forcibly occupy landlords' lands. 

 

•    There were also instances of physical attacks on landlords, both large and small, as well as crop looting. Logan Lenge Kaise, Danda Hamara Zindabad (How will you collect rent, long live our lathis or sticks) and Lathi Men Sathi (How will you collect rent, long live our lathis or sticks) were popularised by Kisan Sabha workers (Lathi is my companion). As a result, relations between the Bihar Kisan Sabha and the provincial Congress leadership have deteriorated.

 

•    On November 7, 1938, in Bombay, the AITUC, Communists, and followers of Dr. BR. Ambedkar staged a strike in seventeen of the seventy-seven textile mills to protest the passage of the Industrial Disputes Act. At two mills, there was some ‘disorder' and large-scale stone throwing, and some police officers were injured. The police opened fire, killing two people and injuring more than 70 others. 

 

•    The Madras government (along with the Provincial Congress Committee) had a tough stance on strikes, which occasionally turned violent. 

 

•    Kanpur workers went on strike several times, at times acting violently and attacking police officers. However, they tended to receive congressional support. 

 

•    The Congress Ministries lacked the ability to deal with situations in which their own mass base was dissatisfied. They attempted to play a mediating role, which they were successful in doing in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, as well as to some extent in Madras, but not in Bombay. 

 

•    However, they were unable to satisfy the Left-wing critics in general. They frequently viewed all violent protests, particularly trade union struggles, as a law and order issue. Even in Kanpur, they used Section 144 of the Criminal Code to arrest agitating workers and peasant and trade union leaders. 

 

•    Although Jawaharlal Nehru was privately dissatisfied with the Ministries' response to popular protests, he took a different stance in public. ‘We cannot agitate against ourselves,' he responded. He had a habit of ‘standing up for the ministers in public and shielding them from petty and petulant criticism.'

 

•    In September 1938, the All India Congress Committee passed a resolution condemning those, "including a few Congressmen," who "have been found advocating murder, arson, looting, and class war by violent means in the name of civil liberty."

 

•    ‘The Congress, in keeping with its tradition, will support measures taken by Congress governments for the defence of life and property,' the resolution continued. 

 

•    The Congress governments' handling of popular protest was heavily criticised by the Left, which accused them of attempting to suppress peasant and worker organisations. 

 

•    To begin with, he was opposed to militant agitations because he believed that their overt to covert violent nature threatened his nonviolent strategy. 

 

•    As previously stated, he advised the Congress Ministries to rule without the police and army at the start of their tenure. 

 

•    Later on, he began to argue that “violent speech or writing is not protected by civil liberty.” 

 

•    Despite bemoaning the militancy and violence of popular protest agitations and justifying the use of existing legal machinery to suppress them, Gandhiji objected to the frequent use of colonial laws and law and order machinery to suppress them. 

 

•    He desired that the masses' political education be used to counteract the use of violence. 

 

•    He questioned the Madras government's use of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, particularly its "obnoxious clauses," for example. While he criticised Left-wing incitement to class violence, he was always trying to keep Right-wing confrontation with the Left at bay. 

 

•    He also defended the right of Socialists and Communists to preach and practise their politics as long as they followed Congress methods, as Gandhiji could see the immense harm that the Congress would suffer in terms of popular support, particularly among workers and peasants, if they used law and order machinery to deal with their agitations. This would make organising the next wave of extra-legal mass movements against colonial rule more difficult. 

 

Other problem: During the Congress Ministries period, serious flaws in the Congress emerged. There was a lot of factional fighting and bickering, both ideologically and personally, with the factional squabbles within the Congress Ministry and the Assembly party in the Central provinces leading to Dr. N.B. Khare's resignation as premier. 

 

•    The practise of bogus membership emerged and grew in popularity. There was a scramble for jobs and personal advantage positions. Congressmen's indiscipline was on the rise all over the country. 

 

•    The allure of associating with a powerful party drew opportunists, self-seekers, and careerists into the ranks of the Congress at various levels. This was simple because the Congress was a free-for-all political party that anyone could join. In their quest for power, many Congressmen began to embrace casteism.

 

•    Of course, Gandhiji recognised that in a phase of non-mass struggle, a slackening of the movement and a weakening of the moral fibre of Congressmen was unavoidable. As a result, he advised resigning from offices and beginning preparations for the next phase of Satyagraha. 

 

•    In the end, the Congress Ministries' legislative and administrative record was unquestionably positive.

 

•    ‘The old contention that Indian self-government was a necessity for any truly radical attack on India's social backwardness was thus confirmed,' wrote R. Coupland in 1944.

 

•    ‘Looking back, I am surprised at their achievements during a brief period of two years and a quarter, despite the innumerable difficulties that surrounded them,' Nehru wrote in 1944, a harsh critic of the Congress Ministries in 1938-39. 

 

•    Even though the Left was critical, in the long run, the Left's expectations were mostly met. In his report to the Communist International's 6th Congress in 1935 on revolutionary movements in colonial countries, Wang Ming said in the section on India, "Our Indian comrades in attempting to establish a united anti-imperialist front with the National Congress in December last year put before the latter such demands as "the establishment of an Indian workers' and peasants' soviet": 

 

Indigenise communists must develop a programme of popular demands that can serve as the foundation for a broad anti-imperialist united front. ... In the near future, this programme of struggle should include roughly the following demands:

 

1.    Against the slavish constitution

 

2.    For the immediate release of all political prisoners,

 

3.    For the repeal of all extraordinary laws,

 

4.    Against the lowering of wages, the lengthening of the working day, and the dismissal of workers,

 

5.    Against burdensome taxes, high land rents, and the confiscation of peasants' lands for non-payment of debts and obligations, 

 

6.    For the establishment of a socialist republic. Certainly, the Congress Ministries more or less completed this agenda in its entirety.

 

One of the Congress governments' greatest achievements was their firm handling of communal riots. They urged district magistrates and police officers to take decisive action in the event of a communal riot. 

 

Instead of allowing imperialists to use constitutional reforms to weaken the national movement, the Congress leadership demonstrated how the constitutional structure could be used by a movement seeking to capture state power to further its own goals without being co-opted. 

 

•    Despite some flaws, the Congress emerged from the period of office acceptance stronger. Being involved in day-to-day administration did not detract from the national movement's main goal of fighting for self-government. 

 

•    Offices were successfully used to raise national consciousness and expand the area of nationalist influence, thereby strengthening the movement's ability to wage future mass struggles. 

 

•    The influence of the movement had now spread to the bureaucracy, particularly at the lower levels. 

 

•    The morale of the ICS (Indian Civil Service), one of the British Empire's pillars, was also shattered. Many ICS officers believed it was only a matter of time before the British left India. 

 

•    The fear that the Congress might take power again in the future, a prospect made real by the fact that Congress Ministries had already been in power once, helped to neutralise many otherwise hostile elements, such as landlords and even bureaucrats, and ensured that many of them sat on the fence during later years, especially during the Quit India Movement. 

 

•    There was no increase in provincialism or a loss of Indian unity, as the framers of the 1935 Act and its provision for Provincial Autonomy had hoped. The Ministries were successful in forming a united front in front of the Indian government. 

 

•    Despite the fact that there were factions within the Congress, the organisation as a whole remained disciplined. The central leadership used a strong hand to keep factionalism in check, especially at the top. There was also no sticking so office when it came to the crunch. As a result, taking office proved to be only one stage of the freedom struggle. 

 

•    When an all-India political crisis arose, the Ministries quickly resigned, as the central Congress leadership desired. As a result, the opportunists began to flee.

 

•    The Congress also avoided a split between its Left and Right wing, which the British had been actively attempting to promote since 1934. Despite the two wings' harsh criticisms of each other, they not only remained united but also grew closer, as the Tripuri crisis demonstrated. 

 

Above all, the Congress benefited by influencing people from all walks of life. The growth of the Congress party and nationalist hegemony in Indian society has progressed. If mass struggles demolished one element of British colonialism's hegemonic ideology by demonstrating that British power was not invincible, the sight of Indians exercising power demolished another myth that the British had used to keep Indians in slavery: that Indians were unfit to rule.