Nehru’s Word: The Congress organisation must be reformed throughout

The 18^th Lok Sabha elections are over. Political parties are engaged in assessing their successes and failures and deciding their future course of action. While doing so, they might find valuable guidance revisiting Jawaharlal Nehru’s approach to the issue. Even before the first general elections concluded, he sent a preliminary assessment to the Congress Working Committee on 31 January 1952. Though it was clear that the Congress was winning by a huge majority, there is nothing self-congratulatory about his note; instead, he frankly highlights weaknesses and urges quick remedial measures.

---

A full appraisal of the general elections will have to be made later. They are not over yet and many surprises may still be in store for us. Any party contesting elections must make a full examination of the forces at work during the elections and the causes of success and failure. Any working of democracy requires that. The examination must be as objective and impartial as possible. An attempt to hush up things or to ignore something that is not palatable, will lead to wrong conclusions and future disaster.

While a full appraisal and examination must come later, some immediate steps have to be taken and we cannot afford to wait. These steps are not only in relation to the governments to be formed but also in regard to the Congress organisation. Nothing could be more foolish, from the point of view of our organisation, than for us to relapse into passivity.

The elections already held are full of lessons for us. Both our successes and our failures are remarkable and significant. I think that it can truly be said that these elections are a fair index of the mind of the voters at the time they gave the vote. On the whole, there have been fair elections and the voter has had an opportunity to do what he wanted to. There have of course been many unfair forces at play but, in the balance, they can be ignored.

It would be utterly wrong for us to find reasons for our defeat in many places in some trivial occurrence. Where we have won, we have won squarely. Where we have been defeated, that has also been a straight defeat. I am not referring to some individual elections but rather to the picture as a whole.

The electorate has taken a great deal of interest in the elections and has tried to understand some of the issues. It has discriminated and expressed its mind with force. It has behaved as a politically conscious electorate. Of course, local factors have played a great part as they always must do. I think that adult suffrage has abundantly justified itself, even though we may not like all the results. My respect for the average voter in India has gone up greatly.

This election has been a powerful medium for political education. That education could not go far, but it showed that the electorate was receptive and could learn if properly told. Essentially, the defeat of the Congress in the South is due to the non-functioning of the Congress organisation and the functioning of our opponents. The inertia and slackness that had crept into the Congress organisation could not be removed suddenly, and had to produce the results they did.

I think that we would be justified in presuming that wherever we have lost rather heavily, the Congress organisation was not functioning and the Congress leadership was bad. Indeed, reports confirmed this conclusion. In Andhra, there was practically no Congress organisation. In many parts of Tamil Nadu, no Congress work had been done or was being done.

The defeat of Congress ministers in bulk also demonstrates the great unpopularity of their government. It is proof of their failure not merely in the elections but in the art of democratic government.

My tours all over the country had undoubtedly a powerful effect. I am inclined to think that but for those tours, we would have suffered far greater defeats. But the momentary excitement caused by the tours could not take the place of continuous and effective work.

In some provinces, even in the later stages of election, far too much reliance was placed on the general prestige of Congress or my touring or the general press support of the Congress. Real propaganda of any kind was hardly undertaken. In fact, some of our candidates were rather afraid of facing an audience and much more so of canvassing. This kind of attitude is bound to and should lead to defeat.

On the other hand, we have won resounding victories in places where the Congress position was very weak and there were strong candidates opposed to us. We won them by persistent, continuous and aggressive hard work. Wherever I went, there was some complaint of the Congress organisation or sometimes of individuals in charge of it.

I laid stress on the major issues before us and told them that they could change the individuals and reform the organisation, but they must not allow personal feelings to come in the way of great issues. Sometimes my argument carried conviction, at other times it did not. In any event, I was told that this reform must come and they told me that they would hold me by my word.

***

One obvious conclusion of these elections is that the Congress organisation as it is today must be shaken up completely and reformed throughout. Any passive or static attitude to this problem means progressive disintegration of the Congress. On the other hand, a really active, intelligent and fairly aggressive approach to this problem will certainly yield good results.

Those who had left the Congress and were functioning in the KMPP or other groups were our open opponents. But there were many people within the Congress, including some of our candidates, who functioned strangely and sometimes undermined the position of another Congress candidate. Sometimes, private encouragement and help was given to independent candidates or, what was as bad, our candidates did not pull together and each worked for his own success.

Where there were really unpopular candidates, no amount of Congress prestige could save them. Candidates who were little known in the constituency often got through, but anyone who had a bad reputation with the public had to face massive public disapproval.

It has often been said that the Congress organisation has lost touch with the people. The election proved this in many places. Indeed, the structure of the organisation today is itself such as not to encourage these contacts. We function in superior committees, chiefly through the pradesh committees and to some extent through district committees. There may also be tahsil or taluk committees which seldom function.

Even the tahsil is much too big a unit for proper work. The unit must not be bigger than one comprising say about 25 to 30 villages. In UP, there used to be mandal committees of this kind and they were very successful. Why they were abolished I do not know, but I am sure that this injured and weakened the Congress greatly in the UP.

(Selected and edited by Mridula Mukherjee, former professor of history at JNU and former director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library)