Q.Read the passage and answer the questions below:
…Indira Gandhi changed the Congress into highly cerntalised and undemocratic party organisation, from the earlier federal, democratic and ideological formation that Nehru had led…..But this… could not have happened had not Indira Gandhi changed the entire nature of politics. This new, populist politics turned political ideology ……. into a mere electoral discourse, use of various slogans not meant to be translated into government policies…… During its great electoral victories in early 1970s, amidst the celebration, the Congress party as a political organisation died….. — SUDIPTA KAVIRAJ
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →The author argues that Indira Gandhi replaced Nehru’s federal, democratic, and ideological Congress with a centralised, populist machine, and that this transformation ultimately destroyed the party as a genuine political organisation.
- The author draws a sharp contrast between Nehru’s and Indira Gandhi’s approaches to leading the Congress party. Nehru’s Congress was a federal, democratic, and ideological formation — meaning it respected internal democracy, gave space to regional leaders and factions, and was guided by a coherent set of principles. Indira Gandhi, by contrast, turned the Congress into a highly centralised and undemocratic party organisation. She concentrated power in her own hands, sidelined internal dissent, and reduced political ideology to mere electoral slogans — catchy phrases used to win votes but never intended to become actual government policies. In short, Nehru built a party of debate and principle; Indira Gandhi built a party of command and spectacle.
Note
This shift did not happen overnight. It was a deliberate strategy by Indira Gandhi to bypass the old party bosses and appeal directly to the masses, especially after the Congress split of 1969.
- The author says the Congress party ‘died’ in the early 1970s because, despite its massive electoral victories, it ceased to function as a genuine political organisation. A political party, in a healthy democracy, is more than just a vote-winning machine — it is a space for debate, internal democracy, cadre-building, and translating ideology into policy. Under Indira Gandhi, all these features vanished. The party became hollow: slogans replaced ideology, personal loyalty replaced institutional processes, and the organisation itself atrophied. So the ‘death’ the author refers to is not electoral defeat — quite the opposite — but the death of the party as a living, democratic institution.
Important
The author’s point is paradoxical: the Congress won huge majorities in 1971 and 1972, but precisely during those celebrations, the party’s internal life was extinguished. Victory masked organisational decay. …
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