India’s first general election of 1951-52, the most audacious democratic experiment in history, was a referendum on India’s future.
The farther we drift from that moment in time, the more we take for granted its majesty.
Far from building a cult of personality around himself to consolidate his power, Nehru faced, even before the electoral contest of 1951–52, a formidable challenge to his values and leadership from within his own party.
In August 1950, Purushottam Das Tandon had become president of the Congress.
The elderly and socially conservative Tandon represented everything Nehru detested: a belief in the primacy of Hindus over India’s minorities, a searing mistrust of Muslims, and a fervour for Hindi’s nationwide imposition.
In Nehru’s view, Tandon’s presidency blurred the lines between the Congress and communal organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Mahasabha.
Worried that the party was abandoning its ideals, Nehru resigned from the Congress Working Committee, Parliamentary Board and Central Election Committee, stopping just short of quitting the party itself.
Terrified of losing their foremost vote-getter right before the election, the Congress rallied behind the Prime Minister.
This compelled Tandon to resign in September 1951, at which point Nehru himself was elected president.
Desiring greater representation of women in Parliament, he wrote to the Chief Ministers in 1950 and suggested they encourage women legislators to resign from the State assemblies and contest for the first Lok Sabha
The spadework of nearly five years, carried out in cataclysmic conditions, preceded that general election.
Onerous enough were the tasks of nation-building and reversing the depredations of colonial rule, but the makers of modern India had a lot more to reckon with: the flames of Partition had to be doused and refugees rehabilitated, the ferocious invasion of Kashmir had to be quelled, and over 500 princely states with recalcitrant rulers had to be drawn into the Union
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