The General Elections in India

Extract

AT THE TIME OF INDEPENDENCE FIFTY YEARS AGO MAHATAMA Gandhi suggested that the Indian National Congress, which he successfully led to independence, should be disbanded. As its function was to produce a coalition which could achieve independence from British rule, its historical role was over. This was an entirely logical, yet an entirely unpractical suggestion. Politicians active inside the Congress wished, not unnaturally, to turn their sacrifices into potential investments in an independent state. Independence was accompanied by partition of the country which degenerated into riots and massacre of civilians. There was no other political organization except the Congress to establish effective government. In any case, Congress was too successful a political organization to be dissolved purely by the power of argument. The Congress, therefore, turned from an independence movement into a governing party, a difficult transformation under all circumstances, and flourished. The historical significance of the recent general elections in India, the eleventh after independence, seems to be the actual realization of Gandhi's suggestion. India must now find a political structure which can function without the overwhelming presence of the Congress, a party universally reviled but, ironically, treated as indispensable.