Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System: Class 12 Political Science Notes

These revision notes for Class 12 Political Science Chapter 5, “Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System”, compress the whole chapter into a revision-ready form: the succession crisis after Nehru, the 1967 election shock, non-Congressism and defections, the Syndicate-versus-Indira split, and the 1971 comeback that changed the Congress even as it restored its dominance.

Every date, figure and definition is drawn from the NCERT text (pp. 72–91) with page references, so you can look anything up quickly. This page is part of the Class 12 Political Science notes hub.

These notes follow the 2026-27 session (rationalised NCERT). If a figure feels uncertain, open the official NCERT e-textbook portal and check the chapter text of Politics in India Since Independence — the chapter begins at page 72.

The story begins where Chapter Two left off: the Congress system described in the notes on Era of One-Party Dominance. It ends with a party restored by being fundamentally changed.

Chapter Map: Five Movements from Nehru to the New Congress

The chapter sets out four learning aims (NCERT, p. 72): understand the political transition after Nehru; describe how opposition unity and the Congress split challenged Congress dominance; explain how a new Congress led by Indira Gandhi overcame these; and analyse how new policies and ideologies facilitated the restoration of the Congress system.

A fifth movement is the verdict on page 89 — that the system was restored by being changed.

Note the opening teaser: the Congress’s original election symbol was a pair of bullocks, and the chapter opens with a cartoon of the party’s internal confrontation in the 22nd year after Independence (NCERT, p. 72).

The whole arc in five movements:

1. Succession (1964–66): two leadership transitions in two years — Nehru to Shastri to Indira, both peaceful.
2. Electoral jolt (1967): the ‘political earthquake’, non-Congressism, and the loss of nine states.
3. Coalition instability and defections (1967–68): SVD governments and the ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’ era.
4. Internal revolt (1967–69): Indira vs the Syndicate, the Ten Point Programme, and the 1969 split.
5. Restoration by reinvention (1969–72): minority government, the 1971 mandate, and the ‘new’ Congress.

In the CBSE reading order this chapter is the middle panel between Chapter Two (the Congress system) and Chapter Six (the crisis of democratic order). Read the chapter as one cause–effect chain: each challenge triggers the next.

After Nehru: The Succession Challenge, 1964–1966

The succession question (NCERT, p. 73) had two parts. “After Nehru, who?” was the ordinary question of succession. “After Nehru, what?” was graver: would India’s democratic experiment survive its founder? Outsiders feared that, like many newly independent countries, India would fail at democratic succession — a failure that could open a political role for the army.

The 1960s were labelled the ‘dangerous decade’ because unresolved poverty, inequality and communal or regional divisions could sink the democratic project or even disintegrate the country (NCERT, pp. 73–74).

1964: Nehru to Shastri (consensus)

• Congress president K. Kamaraj consulted party leaders and Congress MPs and found consensus for Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was chosen unanimously (NCERT, p. 74).
• Shastri (1964–66) inherited the economic fallout of the China war, then faced failed monsoons, drought, a grave food crisis and the 1965 war with Pakistan. His slogan ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ captured the twin challenges of soldier and farmer (NCERT, p. 74).
• He died suddenly at Tashkent on 11 January 1966, while there to sign the agreement to end the war with Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan (NCERT, p. 74).

1966: Shastri to Indira (contest)

• The second succession in two years set Morarji Desai against Indira Gandhi. Senior leaders backed Indira, but not unanimously; the contest was resolved by a secret ballot among Congress MPs (NCERT, p. 74).
• Indira won with the support of more than two-thirds of the party’s MPs. A peaceful transfer despite intense competition was read as a sign of Indian democracy’s maturity (NCERT, p. 74).
• The irony: senior leaders supported her believing her inexperience would make her dependent on them. Within a year of taking office she was working to take control of the party and prove her leadership (NCERT, p. 75).

The 1967 Elections: ‘Political Earthquake’ and Non-Congressism

Context of the elections

• Two PMs had died in quick succession, and the new PM was seen as a political novice in office for less than a year (NCERT, p. 76).
• Economy: failed monsoons, widespread drought, falling agricultural production, serious food shortage, depleted foreign exchange reserves, falling industrial production and exports, and a sharp rise in military spending (NCERT, pp. 76–77).
• The government devalued the rupee under what was seen as US pressure: one US dollar, earlier under Rs 5, now cost more than Rs 7 (NCERT, p. 77).
• Prices rose; bandhs and hartals spread; the government treated protests as a law-and-order problem, deepening public bitterness (NCERT, p. 77).
• Communist and socialist parties launched struggles for greater equality, and the period saw some of the worst Hindu–Muslim riots since Independence (NCERT, p. 77).

Non-Congressism

• Opposition parties realised that the division of their votes kept the Congress in power. Entirely unlike-minded parties therefore formed anti-Congress fronts in some states and entered seat-sharing adjustments in others (NCERT, p. 78).
• Ram Manohar Lohia named the strategy ‘non-Congressism’ and defended it: Congress rule was undemocratic and anti-poor, so unity among non-Congress parties was needed to reclaim democracy for the people (NCERT, p. 78).
• The regional face was C.N. Annadurai’s DMK, riding the anti-Hindi agitation and demanding greater autonomy for states (NCERT, p. 78).

The verdict: a ‘political earthquake’

• The fourth general elections were held in February 1967 — the first time the Congress faced the electorate without Nehru (NCERT, p. 78).
• Congress kept a Lok Sabha majority, but with its lowest tally of seats and share of votes since 1952. Half the ministers in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet were defeated; stalwarts Kamaraj, S.K. Patil, Atulya Ghosh and K.B. Sahay lost their seats (NCERT, pp. 78–79).
• The state picture was dramatic: Congress lost its majority in seven states, and defections blocked government formation in two more. The nine states were Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madras and Kerala (NCERT, p. 80).
• The DMK’s clear majority in Madras was the first time any non-Congress party had won a majority of its own in any state. In the other eight, non-Congress coalitions took power — so a traveller could board the Delhi-to-Howrah train and not cross a single Congress-ruled state (NCERT, p. 80).
• Hold the two levels apart: Congress kept the Centre but lost the states. That Lok Sabha versus assembly distinction is exactly what Exercise Q1 checks.
• Evidence of the period’s doubt: journalist Neville Maxwell wrote in 1967 that India’s democratic experiment had failed and that the army might become the only alternative source of authority. The chapter prints this as a contemporary doubt — not the verdict of events (NCERT, p. 78).

Coalitions and the ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’ Era

SVD governments

• Because no single party had a majority, non-Congress parties formed joint legislative parties — Samyukt Vidhayak Dal (SVD) in Hindi — that supported non-Congress governments. Hence the name SVD governments (NCERT, p. 80).
• The partners were often ideologically incongruent: Bihar’s SVD mixed the socialist SSP and PSP with the left-wing CPI and the right-wing Jana Sangh (NCERT, p. 80).
• Punjab’s ‘Popular United Front’ went further, combining the two rival Akali groups (Sant and Master), both communist parties (CPI and CPI(M)), the SSP, the Republican Party and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (NCERT, p. 80).

Modern echo (outside the textbook): SVD-style arithmetic — unlike-minded partners held together only by numbers — still shapes Indian coalition politics. The chapter notes that the Constitution was later amended to prevent defections; that amendment grew into the anti-defection law (Tenth Schedule, 1985), which disqualifies legislators who switch parties. That law is the modern legal echo of the ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’ vocabulary.

Defection and its vocabulary

• Defection means an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he or she was elected and joins another party (NCERT, p. 81).
• After 1967, breakaway Congress legislators installed non-Congress governments in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh; constant realignments gave birth to the expression ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’ (NCERT, p. 81).
• The origin: Gaya Lal, a Haryana MLA in 1967, changed parties three times in a fortnight — Congress to United Front, back to Congress, and within nine hours to the United Front again. When he switched once more, Congress leader Rao Birendra Singh announced ‘Gaya Ram was now Aya Ram’, and the phrase stuck for frequent floor-crossing (NCERT, p. 81).
• The Constitution was later amended to prevent defections (NCERT, p. 81). Keep both definitions ready: ‘defection’ and the origin of ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’.

Indira vs the Syndicate: From Ten Point Programme to the 1969 Split

The real challenge to Indira Gandhi came not from the opposition but from within her own party (NCERT, p. 81).

The Syndicate and its grip

• The Syndicate was the informal name for the group of Congress leaders who controlled the party’s organisation. It was led by K. Kamaraj and included S.K. Patil (Bombay), S. Nijalingappa (Mysore), N. Sanjeeva Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) and Atulya Ghosh (West Bengal) (NCERT, p. 82).
• Both Shastri and Indira owed their positions to the Syndicate’s support. The group had a decisive say in Indira’s first Council of Ministers and in policy formulation and implementation (NCERT, p. 82).
• After the split the Syndicate leaders stayed with Congress (O). Because Congress (R) won the test of popularity, these powerful men lost their power and prestige after 1971 (NCERT, p. 82).

Indira’s counter: ideology as weapon

• Indira faced two challenges: to build her independence from the Syndicate, and to regain the ground the Congress lost in 1967 (NCERT, p. 82).
• Her bold strategy: convert a simple power struggle into an ideological struggle, giving government policy a Left orientation (NCERT, p. 82).
• The Ten Point Programme (May 1967), adopted by the Congress Working Committee, included social control of banks, nationalisation of General Insurance, ceilings on urban property and income, public distribution of food grains, land reforms and house sites for the rural poor (NCERT, pp. 82–83).
• The Syndicate formally approved the programme but had serious reservations (NCERT, p. 83).

The 1969 presidential election and the formal split

• After President Zakir Hussain’s death, the Syndicate nominated Indira’s long-time opponent, N. Sanjeeva Reddy, as the official candidate. Indira encouraged Vice-President V.V. Giri to file as an independent (NCERT, p. 83).
• She announced the nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks and the abolition of the privy purse. Deputy PM and Finance Minister Morarji Desai left the government over these issues (NCERT, pp. 83–84).
• Party president Nijalingappa issued a whip for Sanjeeva Reddy. Indira’s supporters requisitioned a special AICC meeting — hence ‘requisitionists’ — and were refused. Indira appealed for a ‘conscience vote’, asking Congress MPs and MLAs to vote freely (NCERT, p. 84).
• V.V. Giri won and the official candidate lost. The defeat formalised the split: the Congress president expelled Indira, her group claimed to be the real Congress, and by November 1969 the two factions were Congress (Organisation) and Congress (Requisitionists) — also called Old Congress and New Congress (NCERT, p. 84).
• Indira projected the divide as ideological: socialists vs conservatives, pro-poor vs pro-rich (NCERT, p. 84).

Warning: the formal split came from the 1969 presidential election, not from bank nationalisation. The policies built the ideological story around the power struggle; the election was the event that made the factions separate.

The privy purse issue

• The privy purse was a hereditary grant to former rulers’ families at the integration of princely states, measured by the extent, revenue and potential of the merging state (NCERT, p. 84).
• Hereditary privilege sat uneasily with the Constitution’s principles of equality and social and economic justice; Nehru had long been dissatisfied (NCERT, p. 84).
• The 1970 constitutional amendment failed in the Rajya Sabha, and an ordinance was struck down by the Supreme Court (NCERT, pp. 84–85).
• Indira turned it into a 1971 election issue; after the victory, the Constitution was amended to remove the legal obstacles (NCERT, p. 85).

Memory sequence: May 1967 Ten Point Programme → 1969 bank nationalisation and privy-purse abolition → August 1969 presidential election → November 1969 split.

1971: Garibi Hatao vs Indira Hatao and the Congress Comeback

A minority government reaches for a mandate

• After the split, Indira’s government was a minority but continued in office on the issue-based support of the CPI and the DMK, projecting socialist credentials and pushing implementation of land reform laws and further land ceiling legislation (NCERT, p. 86).
• To end dependence on other parties, strengthen her party’s parliamentary position and win a popular mandate, the government recommended dissolving the Lok Sabha in December 1970 — a bold move. The fifth general election was held in February 1971 (NCERT, p. 86).

The contest

• The odds seemed stacked against Congress(R): one faction of an already weak party, while Congress(O) held the real organisational strength (NCERT, p. 86).
• The major non-communist, non-Congress parties formed the Grand Alliance — the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP), Praja Socialist Party (PSP), Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Swatantra Party and Bharatiya Kranti Dal. The ruling party allied with the CPI (NCERT, p. 86).
• But the Grand Alliance had no coherent programme. Indira said its only common programme was ‘Indira Hatao’ (Remove Indira); her answer was the positive ‘Garibi Hatao’ (Remove Poverty) (NCERT, pp. 86–87).
• Garibi Hatao promised growth of the public sector, ceilings on rural land holdings and urban property, removal of disparities in income and opportunity, and abolition of princely privileges. It built a support base among the disadvantaged — landless labourers, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and the unemployed (NCERT, p. 87).

The outcome and after

• The Congress(R)-CPI combine won 375 seats with 48.4 per cent votes — more than the Congress had ever won in the first four general elections. Congress(R) alone took 352 seats with about 44 per cent (NCERT, p. 87).
• Congress(O), ‘the party with so many stalwarts’, won merely 16 seats with less than one-fourth of the votes Indira’s party secured. The Grand Alliance’s combined tally was less than 60 — a grand failure (NCERT, p. 87).
• The East Pakistan crisis, the 1971 war and the creation of Bangladesh — covered in the notes on India’s External Relations — added to Indira’s stature. Even opposition leaders admired her statesmanship, and the party swept the 1972 assembly elections (NCERT, p. 88).
• Within four years, Indira warded off the challenge to her leadership and to the Congress’s dominant position (NCERT, p. 88).

Memory device: the Hatao pair and the date pegs

Indira Hatao is a negative attack on a person; Garibi Hatao is a positive promise about a condition. If a slogan names a person, it removes them; if it names a problem, it promises to fix it. Date pegs: 1964 Nehru dies → 1966 Shastri dies, Indira becomes PM → 1967 ‘earthquake’ elections → 1969 split → 1971 comeback.

Read the chain as: two deaths, one earthquake, one split, one restoration.

Restoration or Reinvention? The Chapter’s Verdict

The chapter asks directly: ‘Restoration?’ (NCERT, p. 89). The answer is yes and no.

• What was restored: the dominant position. After the 1971 and 1972 victories the Congress was in power in almost every state and popular across different social sections (NCERT, pp. 88–89).
• What changed: Indira did not revive the old party — she re-invented it. The new Congress relied entirely on the popularity of the supreme leader, had a weak organisational structure, lost the factional capacity to accommodate all opinions and interests, and depended more on particular social groups — the poor, women, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities (NCERT, p. 89).
• The consequence: the new Congress was more popular but less able to absorb tensions and conflicts. As the Congress consolidated and Indira’s authority grew, the spaces for democratic expression of people’s aspirations shrank while popular unrest kept growing (NCERT, p. 89).
• The verdict in one line: Indira Gandhi restored the Congress system by changing the nature of the Congress system itself (NCERT, p. 89).

The chapter’s margin question invites the comparison: what was common between the Old and the New Congress? Same name and same electoral dominance — different organisation, different social base, different internal democracy. That unrest, the text warns, grows into the political crisis traced in the notes on Recent Developments in Indian Politics.

The ‘Let’s watch a film’ box presents Zanjeer (1973), whose ‘angry young man’ protagonist embodied frustration with an indifferent system — cultural evidence of the mood of the restored-Congress era (NCERT, pp. 89–90).

Key Terms at a Glance: Definitions Table

This table is the quick-revision glossary: every term a complete answer might need, in student-friendly words with the chapter context.

Election Data at a Glance: 1967 vs 1971

This political science chapter has no formulas; its hard data is the election arithmetic. This table is the chapter’s ‘formula box’ — study the two columns as a pair, not as isolated numbers.

Worked Answer: Why Was Indira Gandhi’s Government Popular in the Early 1970s?

Method: Answer = one clear claim, then every factor backed by a date, a figure or a named policy. Exercise Q7 (NCERT, p. 91) is an open question and the textbook offers no model answer, so this is a complete model answer built purely on the chapter’s content — use it as a template, not as a paragraph to memorise.

Step 1 — Fix the time frame.

‘Early 1970s’ covers the February 1971 Lok Sabha election and the 1972 assembly elections.

Step 2 — List the factors the chapter supplies.

There are five: a positive programme; bold policy actions; the 1971 war; the 1972 sweep; and the contrast with the opposition’s negative slogan.

Step 3 — Attach one concrete fact to each factor.

• Positive programme: Garibi Hatao promised public-sector growth, ceilings on rural land and urban property, removal of income and opportunity disparities, and abolition of princely privileges; its base was landless labourers, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and the unemployed (NCERT, p. 87).
• Bold policy actions: nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks, implementation of land reform laws and further land ceiling legislation, and abolition of the privy purse (NCERT, pp. 83, 86).
• The 1971 war: the East Pakistan crisis and the Indo-Pak war created Bangladesh; even opponents admired her statesmanship, casting her as a strong nationalist leader (NCERT, p. 88).
• The 1972 sweep: Congress won all the state assembly elections held in 1972, showing nationwide reach (NCERT, p. 88).
• The contrast: the Grand Alliance’s only common programme was the negative ‘Indira Hatao’, against her positive agenda (NCERT, p. 87).

Step 4 — Cite the mandate.

The comparison table above carries the full set; the numbers a complete answer should include are Congress(R)’s 352 seats with about 44 per cent of the popular votes, and Congress(O)’s 16 seats with less than one-fourth of Indira’s vote share (NCERT, p. 87).

Step 5 — Close by linking to restoration.

Two successive victories — 1971 at the Centre and 1972 in the states — warded off both the challenge to Indira’s leadership and the challenge to Congress dominance (NCERT, p. 88).

Model answer: Indira Gandhi’s government was popular in the early 1970s because it combined a positive agenda, bold action and a credible nationalist record.

The Garibi Hatao programme promised public-sector growth, ceilings on rural land and urban property, reduction of income and opportunity disparities and abolition of princely privileges, building support among landless labourers, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and the unemployed (NCERT, p. 87).

Bold policies — nationalisation of fourteen leading private banks, land ceiling legislation and abolition of the privy purse — gave the programme visible teeth. The 1971 war that created Bangladesh made her a strong nationalist leader admired even by opponents (NCERT, p. 88).

The February 1971 mandate — Congress(R) alone winning 352 seats with about 44 per cent of the votes — and the 1972 assembly sweep showed the support was nationwide. By contrast, the Grand Alliance’s only common programme, ‘Indira Hatao’, was a negative attack on a person rather than a positive promise to voters (NCERT, p. 87).

Common Mistakes: 1967, the Split, and the Slogans

Six confusions repeat the most; the third column tells you how to check your own answer.

Answer-Writing Strategy for the End-of-Chapter Exercises

The exercises on pages 90–91 reward the same habit: define the term, cite the chapter’s facts, give reasons. This table maps all ten questions and the elements of a complete answer.

The ‘Let us do it together’ box (NCERT, p. 91) suggests collecting party slogans and discussing how price rise affects political fortunes — useful revision activities that connect this chapter’s slogans to the voter’s daily experience.

One-Page Revision Summary: 1964–1972

Scan this timeline and stage table the night before; if you can reproduce both from memory, you know the chapter’s skeleton.

• May 1964 — Nehru’s death; Shastri becomes PM by consensus.
• 1965 — war with Pakistan; ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’.
• 11 January 1966 — Shastri dies at Tashkent; a secret-ballot contest brings Indira Gandhi to power.
• February 1967 — fourth general elections; ‘political earthquake’; nine states lost.
• May 1967 — Ten Point Programme adopted.
• 1969 — presidential election: V.V. Giri defeats the official candidate Sanjeeva Reddy; the split into Congress (O) and Congress (R) formalised by November.
• 1970 — privy-purse amendment fails in the Rajya Sabha, ordinance struck down; Lok Sabha dissolved in December.
• February 1971 — fifth general election: Congress(R) wins 352 seats; Grand Alliance under 60.
• 1971 — East Pakistan crisis, Indo-Pak war, creation of Bangladesh.
• 1972 — Congress sweeps the state assembly elections.

End with the chapter’s verdict in your own words: Indira restored the Congress system by changing its nature. Use this summary as a quick self-check before moving to the FAQ below.

Reading the Chapter’s Cartoons and Sources

The textbook’s visuals are evidence, not decoration. Working from the NCERT captions, here is what each shows and which historical moment it documents.

• Opening cartoon (p. 72): the Congress’s original election symbol, a pair of bullocks, and the party’s internal confrontation in the 22nd year after Independence — a prelude to the 1969 showdown.
• Raghu Rai photograph of Indira Gandhi (p. 76): ‘one woman in a world dominated by men’; the caption pushes the reader to ask why so few women reach such positions — the gender dimension of 1960s politics.
• Devisar village story, Chomu constituency, Rajasthan (pp. 77–78): a text source on the 1967 assembly elections. Sher Singh and his nephew Bhim Singh turned the Congress–Swatantra contest into a local factional fight between uncle and nephew — local politics mixing with party competition.
• Kutty’s cartoon on Charan Singh (p. 80): a cartoonist’s reading of Charan Singh’s 1974 attempt to build a United Front of non-communist parties — proof that non-Congress alignments outlived 1967.
• ‘The Left Hook’ by R.K. Laxman (The Times of India, 21 August 1969, pp. 83–84): published after V.V. Giri’s victory — Giri as the garlanded boxer, the Syndicate’s Nijalingappa on the floor. It documents the presidential-election moment that formalised the split.
• Vijayan’s cartoon (Shankar’s Weekly, 20 July 1969, p. 85): the leadership rivalry inside the Congress in 1969.
• ‘The Grand Finish’ by R.K. Laxman (p. 87): the 1971 outcome, with leading opposition figures on the ground — the Grand Alliance’s collapse in one image.
• Kutty’s cartoon on choosing chief ministers (p. 88): Indira’s new manner of picking CMs, showing how centralised the ‘new’ Congress had become.

Two margin questions work well as revision prompts: ‘Is non-Congressism relevant today? Can it be applied against the Left Front in today’s West Bengal?’ and ‘What’s so unusual in hung assemblies and coalition governments?’ (NCERT, pp. 79–80).

Quick Answers: Frequent Questions on the Congress System

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Reference: NCERT Class 12 Political Science textbook, chapter “Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System”.

Official source: download the NCERT textbook free from ncert.nic.in.