Independent India’s first elections were held from October 25, 1951 to February 21, 1952. To commemorate that monumental exercise, The Wire is publishing a series of articles exploring various aspects of the first ever general election in independent India. Read it here.
In post-independence India, the first general elections held in 1951-52 constituted a rare historical event, if not a glorious moment. They were conducted at a time when male literacy rate was 27.16%, while the corresponding figure for female was 8.86%. The economy was in shambles, worsened by the gaping wounds of the Partition.
Despite these odds, Sukumar Sen, ICS, the first chief election commissioner, took up the challenge of conducting the first general elections on the basis of which the first Lok Sabha was constituted. In the absence of a proper infrastructure, the polls were conducted in 68 phases, commencing on October 25, 1951 and ending on February 21, 1952. Out of 17,32,13,635 eligible voters, 8,86,12,171 voters turned out, that is, about 51.15% voters cast their votes, which was not a small feat.
CPI’s decision to participate
Against this background, the Communist Party of India (CPI) participated in the elections, threatened by a cloud of uncertainties. The war had just ended and the CPI’s decision not to join the Quit India movement, the call given by M.K. Gandhi, had quite badly tarnished its image. Besides, the party had just shifted its position on transformation of state power in post-independence India through armed struggle to the defence of parliamentary communism.
Moreover, the party was declared illegal in parts of the country as a sequel to the Telangana uprising and, organisationally, it was in a pretty bad state. In fact, a good number of CPI activists were languishing in jail, which badly affected the functioning of the CPI’s election machinery.
For the CPI it was, indeed, a momentous decision to contest, as in 1948, the Second congress of the CPI, held in Calcutta under the stewardship of B.T. Ranadive, the new general secretary who replaced P.C. Joshi, characterised the attainment of independence as “sham”. Consequently, a call for ousting the Nehru government was given, which would make way for a revolutionary restructuring of power. The Telangana uprising was to a large extent the fallout of this line.
In 1951 the CPI, under the leadership of the new general secretary Ajoy Ghosh, who replaced Ranadive, adopted a new programme which signalled the change of line, allowing the party’s entry in parliamentary politics in post-independence India.
Fifty-three parties contested the first general elections, the Congress being the biggest, for obvious reasons. Elections were held for 401 constituencies. The results were declared on February 10, 1952. The Congress won 361 seats, securing 45% of votes. The CPI contested 49 seats and won 16 seats, coming out as the second biggest party next to Congress, although it secured only 3.29% votes.
Compared to the Congress, the CPI’s performance was rather poor; but considering the odds against which the party was pitted, it was not a very bad performance either. In this context it should be noted that Ravi Narayana Reddy, contesting from the Nalgonda constituency (Hyderabad) in the name of People’s Democratic Front or PDF, which was a cover for the CPI in Andhra Pradesh because of its banned status there, got the highest number of votes in the first general election, beating even Jawaharlal Nehru.
Regarding election symbols, two options were given by the CPI to the Election Commission – hammer and sickle, and ears of corn with a sickle on one side and hammer on another side. Finally, however, the symbol that was allotted looked like this: ears of corn and a sickle. The election campaign was conducted physically, since the use of the radio for electoral propaganda by political parties was not sanctioned by the Election Commission.
A biting critique of Nehru
This being the poll scenario involving the first general election, it would be most appropriate to take a close look at two documents of this period, if one has to understand the CPI’s reading of the 1951-52 election. One refers to the party’s election manifesto, which was finalised on August 6, 1951, and the other was “The Results of the General Elections and the Tasks before the Party”.
In this election, the main political rival of the CPI as well as all other opposition parties was the Congress led by Nehru. The CPI’s election manifesto was unambiguously clear on its assessment of the performance of the Nehru government. Besides being a trenchant critique, the manifesto simultaneously put forward an alternative understanding of the new India which it envisaged.
It needs to be kept in mind that the 1951-52 elections took place at a time when the Congress had not yet launched its welfarist strategy of building a “socialistic pattern of society”, following the Avadi Congress resolution adopted in 1955, with its focus on the public sector, nationalisation etc. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was yet to take off, as the Bandung Conference (1955), which initiated NAM, was yet to emerge. In the early ’50s, the Indian economy was very much controlled by British business and commercial interests, India remained a member of the British Commonwealth and the US pressure on India to join the Western bloc was quite palpable. This was a time when India’s relations with the Soviet Union were rather cool, as Stalin had a strong dislike for Nehru and the Congress. It was only after Stalin’s death in 1953 that the Indo-Soviet relations started warming up, as evident in India’s adoption of planned economic growth, with a focus on industrialisation. To a large extent, the Soviet Union emerged as a major factor in shaping the direction of the Indian economy in the mid-1950s, which led to the softening of CPI’s attitude towards the Nehru regime.
Also read: The First Indian Election: Inclusion, Independence and the Making of ‘We, The People’
The CPI’s election manifesto, and its critique of the early years of the Nehru era, have to be viewed in this perspective. It was pointed out in the manifesto that the attempts of the Congress to showcase its achievements by resorting to certain facts and figures could not hide the real fact that essentially it was a “government of national betrayal”, a “government of landlords and monopolists” and a “government of “lathis and bullets”.
It was a “government of national betrayal”, because, according to the CPI, the Nehru government remained closely tied up with British and American capital, it remained a member of the British Commonwealth and India’s defence establishment continued to be controlled by the British military advisors. The manifesto stated the CPI’s understanding in the following words:
“What has come is not freedom. What has come is the replacement of a British viceroy and his councilors by an Indian president and his ministers, of white bureaucrats by brown bureaucrats, and a bigger share in the loot of Indian people for the Indian monopolists collaborating with the imperialists.”
The Manifesto characterised the Nehru government as one of “landlords and monopolists”, because at one level it planned to pay hefty compensation to the zamindars, following the abolition of the zamindari system, and allowed the princely states to continue their corrupt and oppressive rule, these being the two main pillars of feudalism which sustained the British rule. At another level the agricultural front was believed to be on the verge of collapse, the poor peasants being the worst sufferers, as victims of money lenders, and no land reform programme, focusing on the slogan “land to the tillers”, was on Nehru’s agenda of Nehru. This catastrophic situation made India beg for food from the West, predominantly the US.
As regards the industrial front, the CPI alleged, it was controlled by the Indian monopolists, which led to the plunder of the economy by vested interests. While they had their tie-up with bureaucrats and ministers, corruption, primarily bribery, reigned at all levels involving the Congress party. This is how the election manifesto evaluated the situation:
“It is not true therefore to assert that all are suffering in Nehru’s India, that freedom has brought suffering to all. … Freedom has meant freedom for them ( i.e.,princes, monopolists, landlords, big financiers, speculators and black marketeers — SDG) to rob and loot the people and freedom for the congress ministers to join in the loot.”
The CPI’s characterisation of the Nehru government as one of “lathis and bullets” was based on the understanding that it was a government which resorted to all sorts of repressive measures against the outbreak of any kind of protest by the masses, the classic example of which was the brutal suppression of the Telangana uprising. The manifesto made the caustic remark that 80% of the central budget was spent on the maintenance of the army and bureaucracy. The state governments, it was stated, spent far more on police than on education in a country where 90% of the people were illiterate.
Suggesting an alternative
While lambasting the Nehru government, the manifesto projected an alternative too, which was based on the CPI’s new programme adopted in 1951. In putting forward this alternative, the CPI made it clear that it was fighting on two fronts: the Congress, and the reactionary, communal forces represented by the Hindu Mahasabha. To attain this goal, CPI called for unity of all Left and democratic forces, while presenting before the electorate an alternative blueprint for the future which was described as a “people’s democracy”, a phrase very popular in the newly established socialist regimes in eastern Europe after 1945.
This ideal envisioned a government comprising all democratic parties and groups representing the interests of workers, peasants, middle classes and patriotic sections of the national bourgeoisie which would carry out the following tasks: all organs of the government, from the bottom to the top, would be elected by the people. All officials would be held accountable to the people and would be removable by the people. The police force would be replaced by a people’s militia, to be raised, guided and controlled by the people. It would create a national army closely linked with the masses. It will cancel peasants’ debts, implement the slogan “land to the tiller”, will take into consideration the interests of the poorer sections of the landlords and the rich peasants. Industrialisation would take place with the aid of nationalised capital and cooperation of the private industrialists would be enlisted by assuring them legitimate profits. It would grant a living wage to the workers, protect the rights and interests of all minorities, would end caste oppression and would put to an end all socio-economic disabilities from which women suffer. It promised to introduce free compulsory primary education and people’s health services across the country. Above all, it would drive out the Britishers who still controlled the Indian economy and would stage an exit from the British Commonwealth.
Also read: The Parties That Contested India’s First General Election
After the election results came out in February, 1952, the Central Committee of the CPI prepared a review report, mentioned earlier, at the end of March 1952, which was released to the press on April 5. In this report, CPI made a detailed analysis of its performance as well as its weaknesses. This was based on the following facts and figures: CPI won 16 seats out of the 49 seats it contested. The break up was: Madras – eight seats, Orissa – one seat, Tripura – two and West Bengal – five. It came second in 19 seats which it contested in Bombay, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Punjab, UP, West Bengal, Mysore, Ajmer and Manipur. In a way, this performance was quite significant for the reason that it confirmed the party’s presence in so many states in the immediate aftermath of independence, which was quite a stunning achievement, considering the adverse circumstances it encountered while contesting the elections. It is these facts which went into the making of the party’s election review.
Two elements in the report merit attention. First, it viewed the election as a moral defeat for the Congress and a shift not to the Right but to the Left, the argument being that the Congress had secured only 45% of votes, while the CPI came out as the main opposition party, standing next to the Congress. Second, it made a critical evaluation of the weaknesses and the problems faced by the party. CPI all along pleaded for a united democratic front of all democratic and Left forces, leaving out the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha. But this did not materialise because of the intransigent attitude of the Socialist Party towards this idea and its rabid anti-communist stance.
However, the CPI too, it was admitted, had sectarian trends inside the party and it was acknowledged that there were cases where despite this attitude of the Socialists, there were Socialist candidates who were popular in their own capacity in their localities and for the sake of defeating the Congress, they should have been supported. It was stated in the report that the CPI”s rather stellar performance, which could not be anticipated, must not be overestimated. It would be absolutely wrong to put forward the sectarian slogan that the CPI was emerging as an alternative to the Congress. Instead, it was emphatically stated, the accent should be on the broad coalition of all Left and democratic forces which were opposed to the Congress as well as the Hindu Right.
Seventy years after the first general elections, when one looks back at the past and reviews the Communist Party’s performance, it has got to be admitted that the initial difficulties faced by the party when it joined the electoral battle could be largely overcome. Its negative image was largely neutralised by its electoral achievements. CPI’s entry in parliamentary politics in 1951-52 opened up a new frontier for the party, as within years it established itself as a potent and formidable opposition force in Parliament, commanding respect and admiration from all walks of life.
Sobhanlal Datta Gupta is the former Surendra Nath Banerjee Professor of Political Science, Calcutta University.