Chapter 2 — Era of One-Party Dominance

India's first general election was held from October 1951 to February 1952 and is commonly referred to as the 1952 election because most parts of the country voted in January 1952. The Indian National Congress won decisively, capturing 364 of the 489 seats in the first Lok Sabha. The Communist Party of India came second with only 16 seats.

Congress dominance had several roots. The party inherited the legacy of the national movement and was seen as its natural successor. It was the only party with an organisation spread across the country down to the local level, giving it a 'first off the blocks' advantage since many other parties were formed only around or after independence. Nehru, the most popular and charismatic leader of the time, led its campaigns. Additionally, Congress functioned as a broad social and ideological coalition, accommodating peasants and industrialists, urban and rural groups, and diverse castes and religions.

The 'Congress system' refers to the unique political arrangement of the first decade after independence in which Congress functioned both as the ruling party and, in effect, as the opposition. Because Congress was an ideological coalition with many internal factions representing different interests and ideologies, political competition largely took place within the party rather than between parties. Opposition parties primarily influenced Congress factions from the margins rather than offering direct alternatives to power.

Opposition parties such as the Socialist Party, the CPI, and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh gained only token representation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. However, they played a crucial role in maintaining the democratic character of the system by offering sustained and principled criticism of Congress policies. They kept democratic political alternatives alive, prevented resentment with the system from turning anti-democratic, and groomed leaders who later shaped the country.

The Election Commission faced enormous logistical challenges. It had to delimit constituency boundaries and prepare electoral rolls for 17 crore eligible voters, of whom only 15 per cent were literate. When the first draft of the rolls was published, nearly 40 lakh women were not recorded by name — they were listed only as 'wife of' or 'daughter of'. The Commission refused these entries and ordered revision or deletion. Over 3 lakh officers and polling staff had to be trained. Elections were postponed twice before they could finally be held.

In the first general election, about 20 lakh steel boxes were placed inside each polling booth — one box for each candidate, bearing the candidate's election symbol. Voters dropped a blank ballot paper into the box of the candidate they chose. After the first two elections this method changed: ballot papers carried names and symbols of all candidates and voters stamped their choice. This method was used for roughly forty years. The Election Commission began introducing Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) towards the end of the 1990s, and by 2004 the entire country had shifted to EVMs.

India's 1952 election was the first time democracy was tested on such a massive scale in a poor and largely illiterate country. Until then democracy had existed mainly in prosperous nations of Europe and North America where nearly everyone was literate; in fact, many European countries had not yet given voting rights to all women. India extended universal adult franchise to 17 crore voters, proving that democratic elections could be held in conditions of poverty and low literacy. The Times of India noted the election had 'confounded all those sceptics' and the Hindustan Times called it 'the largest experiment in democratic elections in the history of the world'.

In the 1957 assembly elections in Kerala, the Communist Party of India won the largest number of seats — 60 of 126 — and E.M.S. Namboodiripad was invited by the governor to form the ministry. This was the first time in the world that a Communist party had come to power through free and fair democratic elections. The Congress began a 'liberation struggle' against the elected government, and in 1959 the Congress government at the Centre dismissed the CPI government in Kerala under Article 356 of the Constitution, a decision the text describes as widely cited as a prominent instance of misuse of constitutional emergency powers.

The first-past-the-post system means the party that gets more votes than any rival in a constituency wins that seat, regardless of whether it has a majority. In 1952, Congress obtained only 45 per cent of total votes but won 74 per cent of seats. The Socialist Party, second in terms of vote share with over 10 per cent of votes nationally, won less than 3 per cent of seats. The combined votes of all non-Congress candidates exceeded Congress's total, but those votes were split among many different parties and candidates, leaving Congress ahead in each constituency.

The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was formed in 1951 with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee as its founder-President; its lineage traces back to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha. The party emphasised one country, one culture, and one nation, believing India could become modern and strong on the basis of Indian culture and traditions. It called for the reunion of India and Pakistan as Akhand Bharat, advocated replacing English with Hindi as the official language, opposed concessions to religious and cultural minorities, and consistently advocated India developing nuclear weapons especially after China's atomic tests in 1964. In the 1950s it remained on the margins, winning 3 Lok Sabha seats in 1952 and 4 in 1957. The Bharatiya Janata Party traces its roots to the Jana Sangh.

The Socialist Party's origins trace to the Congress Socialist Party formed within the Congress in 1934 by young leaders seeking a more radical and egalitarian programme. When the Congress amended its constitution in 1948 to bar dual party membership, the socialists formed a separate party. They believed in democratic socialism, criticising Congress for favouring capitalists and landlords. Their biggest dilemma came in 1955 when Congress declared its own goal to be the 'socialist pattern of society', making it hard for the socialists to present themselves as a distinct alternative. The party went through many splits, producing the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party, the Praja Socialist Party, and the Samyukta Socialist Party. Many contemporary parties including the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal trace their origins to the Socialist Party.

Many newly independent countries, faced with challenges of national unity and nation-building, chose non-democratic rule — including nominal democracies controlled by one leader, one-party rule, or army rule. India's leaders consciously chose the more difficult democratic path because the freedom struggle itself was deeply committed to democracy. They did not see politics as a problem but as a way of solving problems. B.R. Ambedkar, in his speech to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949, warned against hero-worship in politics as 'a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship'.

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