Chapter – 2

The Era of One Party Dominance

In this post we have given the detailed notes of class 12 Political Science Chapter 2 (Era of One Party Dominance) in English. These notes are useful for the students who are going to appear in class 12 board exams.

Printed Books Are Available Now!

One Party Dominance 

• After facing the first problem, the second main problem before India was to establish democracy.
• After attaining independence on 15 August 1947, India completed the process of constitution making. It took 2 years 11 months and 18 days to make the Indian Constitution. 
• The Constitution of India was completed on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950. After the implementation of the constitution, the biggest task was to establish democracy. 
• The Election Commission was established in January 1950 and Sukumar Sen became the first Election Commissioner of the country.

Conducting elections in the country was no less than a challenge. it was because

• Only 16 percent of the people in the country were educated.
• Most of the country’s population was suffering from poverty.
• Lack of means of communication and technology
• 3200 MLAs and 489 Parliaments were to be elected by 17 crore voters.
• The constituencies were to be determined.  

India’s first general election – 1952

For holding the first general election in the country-

• Nearly 3 lakh people have been trained
• Constituencies demarcated
• Voter list prepared (every person who was above 21 years of age)
• The election campaign started in the country.  

Opinions about the first election

• One Indian editor called it “the biggest gamble in history”.
• A magazine named Organizer wrote that “Jawahar Lal Nehru, while alive, will see and regret that universal adult suffrage in India was a failure “.
• The first general elections in India were held from October 1951 to February 1952. 
• Because in most places’ elections were held in 1952 therefore, they were called 1952 elections.

1952 election results

• Democracy was successfully established in India.
• People enthusiastically participated in the election 
• There was a tough contest between the candidates in the election, the losing candidates also declared the result correct. 
• The Indian people carried out this election experiment well and all the critics were silenced.
• In the elections, Congress won 364 seats and emerged as the single largest party.
• The second largest party was the Communist Party of India which won 16 seats.
• Jawahar Lal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of the country.

Congress Dominance

In the elections of 1952, where the Congress got 364 seats on one hand, the second largest party, the Communist Party of India, could win only 16 seats. These numbers clearly show the dominance of Congress. But why did this happen?

This happened because –

• biggest and oldest party
• Congress was the only party whose organization was spread all over the country.
• legacy of freedom struggle
• Leadership of great and charismatic leaders
• Support of all classes and inclusion of all ideologies

Nature of Congress’s Dominance

The rule of Congress in India was similar to the dominance of one party, but its specialty was that it was established in democratic conditions, that is, the people had given the Congress a chance to rule for so many years by electing them. It was completely different from other countries. In other countries such as Cuba, China and Syria, only one party rule is provided in the constitution and on the other hand, in countries like Myanmar and Belarus, one party rule was established by military. The situation in India was different from this, the dominance of Congress was established in India through democracy which shows the popularity of Congress in India.

Main Parties

Socialist Party

The Socialist Party was formed in 1934 by some leaders within the Congress, but in 1948, when the Congress changed its constitution and abolished dual citizenship, the Socialists formed a separate Socialist Party, but this party did not get much success in the elections.

Founder                                                            –             Acharya Narendra Dev

Other main leaders                                          –          Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Ashok Mehta, M.S. Joshi, Achyut Patwardhan                                                                     

Thoughts

• Belief in socialism,
• Criticized the Congress as a party of the rich and the capitalists.

In future, the Socialist Party was split into different parties.

• Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party
• Praja Socialist Party
• United Socialist Party 

Communist Party of India (CPI)

Inspired by the Russian Revolution in 1917, many communist groups emerged in India as well. These were the groups who wanted to solve the problems of the country through communist ideology.

Till 1935, all these groups worked within the Congress and in December 1941, they broke away from the Congress and formed the Communist Party of India separately.

Chief leaders- ES Namburipad, PC Joshi, Ajay Ghosh, AK Gopalan.

Thoughts

• This party was influenced by communist ideology.
• He said that the freedom achieved in 1947 is not true freedom.
• In 1951, contested the elections leaving the path of violent rebellion and emerged as the second largest party.

The Division

CPI split in 1964 and became two parties

• Communist Party of India (CPI)
• Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M)

Swatantra party

Swatantra Party was founded in 1959 by C. Rajagopalachari

Thoughts

The ideology of the Swatantra Party was inspired by capitalism.

• According to this party the government should intervene less in the economy
• private sector should be exempted
• Friendship with the Soviet Union was opposed by this party 
• Supported increasing relations with America
• opposed the policy of non-alignment

main leader

• C Rajagopalachari
• K N Mushi
• N G Ranga
• Meenu Masani

Bharatiya Jana Sangh 

Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee.

thinking

• The ideology of Bharatiya Jana Sangh was inspired by nationalism
• He supported making Hindi the national language.
• opposed English language
• Supported the creation of a united India by joining Pakistan.
• One nation, one nation, one culture.

main leader

• Shyama Prasad Mukherjee,
• Balraj Madhok
• Deen Dayal Upadhyay

Support

Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh

Second General Election 1957

• In 1957, the second general elections were held in India, this time the situation remained the same as the last time and the Congress won almost all the seats comfortably, the Congress got 371 seats in the Lok Sabha and Jawaharlal Nehru became the Prime Minister of India for the second time but in Kerala. The influence of the Communist Party was visible and the Congress could not form the government in Kerala.
• In 1957, the Communist Party of India formed the government in Kerala and ES Nambooripad became the Chief Minister, but in 1959, the Central Government (Congress) dismissed his government using Article 356 of the Constitution. There was also a lot of controversy over this decision in the future.

Third General Election 1962

• In 1962, the third general election was held in India, in which again the Congress easily won the elections in almost all the places. In this election, Congress won 361 seats in the Lok Sabha and Jawaharlal Nehru became the Prime Minister for the third time.

We hope that class 12 Political Science Chapter 2 (Era of One Party Dominance) notes in English helped you. If you have any query about class 12 Political Science Chapter 2 (Era of One Party Dominance) notes in Hindi or about any other notes of class 12 Political Science in English, so you can comment below. We will reach you as soon as possible…