History of Political Parties of India

Election fever is already hot in the country. The results of many state assembly elections are just released and country is plunged into political debate at every corner. Many of my friends have an opinion that we should have bi party system similar to US or UK. This prompted me to read the history of political parties in India and see their origin.

After our defeat in first freedom fight against British in 1857, there was almost no resistance to British Rule for next 3 decades. Then the members of Theosophical Society of India felt that there should be some representation of Indians in British Raj. The members like A. O. Hume (a Scot), Dadabhai Nauroji, Justice Ranade founded India National Congress (INC) in 1885. The objective of INC was definitely not to achieve the complete independence, but to establish cordial relations with British Raj. In fact, INC’s first conference was held in Mumbai with the blessing of British Raj.

Many of us misunderstood the real meaning of Self Rule or Home Rule. In 1916, INC leaders came together under the leadership of Annie Besant to demand for self-government and to obtain the status of a Dominion within British rule as enjoyed by Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand. (These countries still enjoy this status.) In fact, S. Srinivasa Iyengar was expelled from INC in 1929 for demanding complete independence. However, it became the main objective or agenda after Lahore session in 1929.

The first visible division in INC appeared in 1907. Mawal (Naram Dal) was led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Jahal (Garam Dal) was led by Lokmanya Tilak, but the groups coexisted for long. The first split happened in 1923 when Chittaranjan Das, Motilal Nehru, Annie Besant formed Swarajya Party in the protest of Gandhiji’s support to Khilafat Movement. But it merged with INC very shortly.

Till 1934, INC was umbrella organization and embraced diverse thoughts and groups such as socialist, communists, secular, even Hindu and Muslim conservatives. The next major desertion happened in 1934 when Socialist leaders of INC separated and formed Congress Socialist Party (CSP). There were many but notably Ram Manohar Lohia was one of the founders. The socialist has a long history in India. Their journey started from CSP to Samyukta Socialist Party to Janata Morcha during Emergency to Janata Party.  Janata Party formed the government in center in 1977 after defeating Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s congress. Further journey of socialist has been very jumpy with multiple mergers and splits. They still exist in the form of SP, RJD, BJD, JDU etc. and have reduced to family run political parties.

The next major departure happened when Gandhiji expelled Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as Party President for his communist tilted socialist views.  Netaji Bose founded Forward Bloc in 1939. Further history of Azad Hind Sena is well known. This party still exists in many eastern states in many forms and today it is completely communist in ideology.

The next major defection was of Muslim leaders. Muslim League was established in 1906 with the encouragement from Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (Founder of Aligarh Muslim University) but they were just satisfied in sycophancy of British and assisted them in keeping Hindu-Muslim divide wide and open. INC leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah left Congress and joined them in 1920. Then it started getting popularity and support from Muslims. They became prominent in 1940 when they demanded separate Pakistan. Rest is the history! Today, Muslim League is a very small party both in India and Pakistan.

KVR Periyar was a member of INC. He founded Dravidar Kazhagom in 1925 to promote anti Brahmin, anti-Sanskrit, anti-north Indians front in Madras Presidency. Initially, it was a social movement and became a political party in 1944. Annadurai left it in 1949 and formed DMK. DMK came to power in Tamil Nadu in 1967. It was further split by MGR in 1972 to form AIADMK. DMK and AIADMK are power brokers today.

National Conference was established by Sheikh Abdulla who was INC member then in 1932. It was merged with INC in 1965 and again separated in 1977.

After the death of Gandhiji in 1948 and Saradar Patel in 1950, INC almost became the personal property of Jawaharlal Nehru. He enjoyed unconditional, unipolar power until his death in 1964. During his leadership, India saw the replacement of generation of freedom fighters with new generation leaders nurtured under the leadership of Nehru.  There were many old timers who were not happy with Nehru and his style of politics. C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) and N. G. Ranga abandoned INC and formed Swatantra Party in 1959. They won 18 seats in 1962 and 44 seats in 1967 in Loksabha. There was a very strong Indira wave in 1971 and all the opposition parties were defeated completely. N. G. Ranga returned to Congress in 1972 and Swatantra Party merged with Bharatiya Kranti Dal of Charan Singh (ex-congressman) in 1974.

INC faced leadership crises after Nehru’s death and decadence from Mrs. Indira Gandhi. INC declared Neelam Sanjeev Reddy as official candidate for President of India in 1969. Mrs. Gandhi defied party lines and supported V. V Giri an independent candidate. He elected as a President of India with her support. She was served with show cause notice for indiscipline but she completely ignored it. Then the party split into two viz. INC (R – Requisition) led by Indiraji and Congress (O- Organization) led by Kamraj and Morarji Desai. By this time, she had complete control of INC and old leaders (Congress-O) were completely marginalized. INC (O) fought separately in 1971 election but could not make any impact. Her authoritarian and autocratic style of working made India to see dark period of Emergency in 1975. Many Congress-O leaders (Morarji Desai, Chandrashekhar) joined Jay Prakash Narayan’s movement and become the part of Janata Party.

Post Indira period, INC saw many splinters. There are close to 40-50 parties separated from INC. Many of them are today defunct or merged with some other political party or INC. However, it would be interesting to see some of them.

1.       Indian National Congress (Urs): Started by Devraj Urs, Yashwantrao Chavan, Sharad Pawar, Antony, Oommen Chandy, Ambica Soni etc. in 1978 after the defeat of Indira Congress post Emergency election. They won 13 seats in 1980 in Loksabha. It does not exist today.

2.       Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress: Formed by Pranab Mukherjee in 1986 as he opposed Rajiv Gandhi being appointed as PM. It merged back with INC in 1989.

3.       All India Indira Congress: Founded by N. D. Tiwari, Arjun Singh, etc. in 1994. It does not exist today.

4.       Tamil Mannila Congress: Established by G. K. Moopanar and P. Chidambaram etc. in 1996 and later merged with Congress in 2002.

5.       Trinamool Congress: Formed by Mamata Didi in 1998 after she was expelled from INC in 1997. It is still active and ruling West Bengal.

6.       Nationalist Congress Party: Started by Sharad Pawar etc. in 1999. It is still active in Maharashtra.

7.       YSR Congress Party: Founded in 2011 and is still active in AP.

Communist party of India was established in 1920 by one account and 1925 by another account. The prominent founding figures were M.N.Roy and Shripad Amrit Dange. There were many small communist groups in India during that period. Later they came under one umbrella under CPI. They garnered very good support across the country in those days. However, their policies were not very consistent. Sometimes they supported world war / British and sometime they opposed it. As a result, their popularity and support eroded. But, post-independence they consolidated their position and were the second largest party in Loksabha till 1962. It is interesting to note that Nehru was successful in making USSR as a friend of India and INC. As per the wishes of USSR, CPI followed the policy of supporting INC by remaining in opposition. (In fact CPI supported Emergency declared by Mrs. Gandhi.) As a result, Nehru practically did not face any opposition during his tenure as PM. Many communist leaders did not like Dange’s policy of supporting INC. During Indo-China war, USSR backed India and communist China did not like that. Similarly, faction of communist party, who were supportive of China, did not like the Dange’s approach. People like E.M.S. Namboodiripad formed another group called Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1964. Today, CPI (M) is larger than CPI and had their government in West Bengal and Kerala multiple times.

Today, the second most important political party is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Its first version was Bharatiya Jan Sangh. After assassination of Gandhiji, Hindu Mahasabha was almost eliminated from the scene as they were one of the accused in this case. After the departure of Gandhiji, Sardar Patel, Netaji Bose and exit of Ram Manohar Lohia and other socialist leaders from INC, as discussed earlier, Congress came under complete control of Nehru. It created vacuum in right wing politics or Hindu nationalist politics. Dr. Shama Prasad Mukharji was then part of Nehru’s cabinet. He was unhappy with Nehru Liaqat pact (1950). He resigned from the government and then along with Bal Raj Madhok approached Aarya Samaj and RSS for formation of a Hindu nationalist political party. These efforts resulted into formation of Bharatiya Jan Sangh. It was established in 1951. They won just 3 seats in the first Loksabha election in 1952 and not counted in top political parties then. But it became third largest political party in 1967 election and won 35 seats in Loksabha. The period from 1972 to 1984 has been very turbulent for the party. They first supported Janata Morcha of Jay Prakash Narayana during Emergency and then became a part of Janata Party. They moved out of Janata Party after the debacle of Morarji and Charansigh’s government and formed BJP in 1980. It was practically a new beginning for the party with 12 seats in 1980 and 2 seats in 1984 general election. Today it is the second largest political party with government in many states.

Interestingly, BJP did not see any dissidence till 2001.

1.       The first breakaway faction was Asom Bharatiya Janata Party founded in 2001. The party could not create any impact in Assam.

2.       Babulal Marandi formed Jharkhand Vikas Morcha in 2006. It is important political force in Jharkhand with 11 MLA’s in current state assembly.

3.       Uma Bharati started Bharatiya Janshakti Party in 2006 and merged with BJP in 2011.

4.       Kalyan Singh set up Jankranti Party in 2010. He merged his both the political parties Rashtriya Kranti Party and Jankranti Party into BJP in Jan-2013.

5.       Keshubhai Patel founded Gujarat Parivartan Party in 2012 and won 2 seats in assembly election in 2012. It is just matter of time when this party merges back in BJP.

6.       Yeddyurappa started Karnataka Janata Paksha in 2012 and won 6 seats in assembly election in 2013.

There are few notable parties whose lineage is not evidently with either Congress or BJP. Telugu Desam Party is such major party in this category. NTR founded it 1982. He did not have any political affiliation earlier at least openly. It immediately came to power in AP in 1983 due to popularity of NTR. In fact, it is the first regional political party to become principle opposition party in Loksabha in 1984 with 30 MP’s. TDP achieved it when there was a strong sympathy wave in the country due to assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. They could repel the wave and got landslide victory in AP in 1984 general election.

Shiromani Akali Dal was founded in 1920 and has been major political force in Punjab till today.

There are few political parties influenced by ideology of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. Interestingly, he never had any association with INC in those days. He started Independent Labour Party in 1936 which was further transformed into Schedule Caste Federation in 1942. Post-independence SCF did very well in many Loksabha elections. Now it is called as Republican Party of India and has numerous factions.

Kashi Ram has been keen follower of Dr. Ambedkar. He may be part of SCF or RPI earlier but it is not very evident. He first formed BAMCEF in 1973 and then DS4 in 1981 as a political party which later transformed into Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984. Today, it is recognized national political party.

In short, political parties of India can be broadly categorized into 3 major ideologies. The first one is so called secular parties headed by Congress. These parties are leaned towards mix of leftist socialist capitalist ideology. Most of them are originated from Congress. The second ideology is Communist. One faction is leaned towards erstwhile USSR and another towards China. The third one is right wing parties who have very strong nationalist religious ideology. BJP is the main one in this category.

We should feel proud of our multi-party political system because this gives space for every thought and this is a basic fabric of this ancient civilization. This is not possible in many democracies in the world. Are you ready to choose only one ideology from these three?

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Thanks for reading till end! I appreciate your affection towards me!!!