Indian National Congress Research Articles

Cancer trends and disparities in India: data needs for providing equitable cancer care.

Cancer trends and disparities in India: data needs for providing equitable cancer care.

ADEUS, NEHRU: POLÍTICA EXTERNA INDIANA SOB A GLOBALIZAÇÃO

This article analyses the trends of India’s foreign policy in recent years under the light of political and economic dynamics, with a focus in its regional surrounding. The text locates an inflection towards economic liberalization undertaken in the beginning of the 1990´s, and then moves on to the context of economic expansion in the 21st century. The achievements and limits of those processes are taken into consideration. In the political realm, as the legitimacy of the Indian National Congress (INC) was brought to check, so was its hegemony, in a process that has favored the rise of political agencies identified with hindu nationalism and communalism, such as the BJP. Overall, the hallmarks of Indian politics that prevailed since independence under leadership of the Congress Party are left behind: economic nationalism, secular politics, and international non-alignment. In this context, the broad orientation of Indian foreign policy also has changed. The text analyses the consequences of this inflection in the regional context, focusing the Neighbors first policy and the priority given to infrastructural connectivity with Southeast Asia (Look East and Act East policies), as well as the recent intensification of business in the African continent. Altogether, the expectations of an alternative civilizatory horizon in the context of the Cold War which has nurtured Nehruvian politics, has given place to a pragmatic rationality that accepts the United States leadership and as such, draws strategies adapting to the mercantile trends that typify globalisation.

Ethiraj Surendhranath Arya - An Unknown Swadeshi Patriot of Tamil Nadu

The Swadeshi Movement produced many selfless patriots like G.Subramania Iyer, V.O.C., Bharathi, Dr.Nanjunda Rao, Subramania Siva, Neelakanda Brahmchari, etc.. Among them Ethiraj Surendhr Nath Arya was a note worthy and a committed Swadeshi nationalist of Tamilnadu. Ethiraj Surendranath Arya (or) Ethiraj Surendranath Babu was a native of Madras and a son of Dhanakoti Raju Naidu of Mylopore. In 1897, he went to Calcutta and joined the Sadhu Ashram of the Brahmo Samaj, was converted to Brahmoism by Pandit Shivanath Sastri. Arya, after having trained there, returned to Madras in July 1906 and he was paid Rs.30/- per month as salary by the Samaj. He had a close contact with the Swadeshi nationalists like G. Subramania Iyer, V.O. Chidambaram Pillai, Subramania Bharathi, Dr. Nanjunda Rao and others in Madras and actively involved himself in the Swadeshi movement. Arya also attended the Calcutta Session of Indian National Congress, held in December 1906.

Sudandhira Sangu and Salt Satyagraha Movement in Tamil Nadu 1930-1931

The Indian National Congress passed a famous resolution of “Complete Independence” at the Lahore Congress Session in 1929 Gandhi decided to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement and declared 26th January 1930 as ‘Independence Day’. Gandhi drafted a list of demands and chose three the prohibition of liquor, reduction of land tax and abolition of salt tax. He wrote a letter to Lord Irwin, the Viceroy of India on 2nd March 1930 requesting him to concede his demands or otherwise he had to face the Salt Satyagraha. Lord Irwin never turned to Gandhi’s demand. Then Gandhi commenced the Salt Satyagraha March on 12th March 1930 to break the salt law at Dandi from Sabarmathi Ashram with 87 Satyagrahis. Gandhi and his fellow satyagrahis reached Dandi on 5th April 1930 Gandhi who himself broke the salt law by picking salt lying on the Dandi beach on 6th April 1930. Further Gandhi appealed to his countrymen to start the movement at their respective regions. The people all over India readily responded to the appeal of Gandhi.

‘I am a British subject’: Indians in Australia claiming their rights, 1880–1940

In researching little-known aspects of Australian political history, this article explores the ways in which Indians living in Australia during the period of immigration restriction used their status as British subjects to argue for greater rights in relation to the colonial, state and Australian federal governments. Australian Indians were politically informed and active, sharing a common consciousness of their rights. Extending earlier work on resident Indian protests against the Immigration Restriction Act, the article demonstrates their engagement with a transnational movement of resistance against discriminatory racial legislation. In their campaigns they enlisted the assistance of the Indian National Congress and other bodies outside Australia.

Counting Caste: Censuses, Politics, and Castelessness in India

This article addresses the important question of how “upper”-caste power is reproduced in contemporary India, in the face of organized challenges from below. It argues that this process turns on the reproduction of castelessness. A long-standing site for the cultivation of castelessness has been the postcolonial census, which has limited the enumeration of caste to certain nonelites for the purposes of affirmative action reservations. However, in the aftermath of an intensive campaign to include a full castewise enumeration in Census 2011, the political leadership of the Indian National Congress Party conceded and reversed seventy years of census policy on caste. This article examines the institutional pushback within the executive bureaucracy in the year following the public concession to change census policy on caste. In doing so, it shows how bureaucratic actions and inactions reproduce both castelessness and upper-caste power in contemporary India.

Making “ideal” Indian women: Annie Besant’s engagement with the issue of female education in early twentieth-century India

ABSTRACTIn 1893, Annie Besant touched the shores of India as a leader of the Theosophical Society. In India, Besant is widely known for her involvement in the Home Rule Movement and as president of the Indian National Congress, the chief political organisation in the Indian freedom struggle. Before entering into the political arena of the country, Besant was actively involved in the religious education of Hindu youths. After six years of establishing a college and a school for upper caste Hindu boys, she founded a school for upper caste Hindu girls in the city of Benares in the United Provinces of British India. The formal education of girls was in a nascent stage in the United Provinces compared to those in the presidencies of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. One of the reasons behind this lag, particularly in Benares, was the deep-rooted orthodoxy which was either opposed to the formal education of girls or enforced restrictions on it. The paper aims to throw light on Besant’s engagement with the question of female education not only in terms of physical access to school but also with regard to “what” the girls were being taught at the school. Did Besant strive for “true” education of upper caste Hindu girls enabling them to liberate themselves from the fetters of orthodoxy or did she perpetuate the orthodox ideals to make them “ideal” Indian women?

Конфессиональный состав Индийского национального конгресса в конце XIX - начале XX в.

Конфессиональный состав Индийского национального конгресса в конце XIX - начале XX в.

La política religiosa del gobierno de Narendra Modi. Pasado y presente del Bharatiya Janata Party en torno a los conflictos interreligiosos en india

En las elecciones nacionales de 2014, el Bharatiya Janata Party, encabezado por Narendra Modi, logró formar gobierno por primera vez en la historia de India, sin contar con el apoyo del partido del Congreso Nacional Indio. Durante casi cuatro años de mandato, el nuevo gobierno parece haber sostenido una línea política de continuidad con las metas nacionales tradicionales, aunque la política religiosa aparece como una excepción. El artículo tiene por objetivo identificar la manera en que el ideario político y religioso de los hacedores públicos más relevantes del país ha influido e influye en la conformación de la política religiosa en India. Para tal efecto, se adopta una metodología cualitativa con un enfoque hermenéutico y descriptivo. Consecuentemente, se consideran las distintas perspectivas de los padres fundadores del país, de sus principales académicos y de sus hacedores políticos más relevantes. La conclusión del trabajo apunta a que la política religiosa desarrollada por el gobierno de Modi ha reforzado la discusión sobre la identidad de India con base en dos posturas contrapuestas: una India laica y sincrética o una India basada en la supremacía del hinduismo. Dicha controversia adquiere especial relevancia dadas las repercusiones políticas y de seguridad que este tema podría provocar tanto a nivel nacional como regional.

“Food Security” versus Cash Transfers: Comparative Analysis of Social Security Approaches in India and Brazil

Amongst Global South nations grappling with the problems of both food security and poverty relief, two of the largest are Brazil and India. Though the nations of course differ in a host of socioeconomic, cultural and geopolitical respects, they do face similar problems of sharp income inequality, displacement of rural populations into cities and increasing battles over land and agricultural ownership. At the same time, both countries have had, until recently, a long period of sustained economic growth, as well as centre-left governments (the Workers’ Party in the case of Brazil, the Indian National Congress in the case of India), attempting to spread the benefits of that growth to a wider social strata. The differential approaches that the social security systems in each nation took in attempting to address the problem of food security are, therefore, instructive in understanding how these questions should be approached on a policy level. Though of course constrained in each case by differing economic and political contexts, as well as path dependencies within each country’s existing social protection regime, there are lessons in their successes and failures. Moreover, an approach which would recognize the best aspects of each policy program could be instrumental in designing a food security policy which reconciles institutional and individual problem levels. This paper will examine the political logics which informed both approaches, with an eye to seeing how these were played out in their concrete effects as implemented.

A Content Analysis of YouTube Political Advertisements: Evidence from Indian Parliamentary Elections

YouTube, a popular video-sharing platform, is being used by political parties to influence voter behavior. The present exploratory study analyses the use of YouTube as a promotional tool during the Indian Parliamentary Elections 2014—the first social media based elections in India. This study examines 92 advertisements of Indian National Congress (INC) and 55 advertisements of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on YouTube for the following parameters: general characteristics of each video, types of message appeal used and the dominant content of the advertisements. The findings revealed that INC emphasized more on the identity of their party while BJP stressed on their candidate. Furthermore, the YouTube advertisements were dominated by positive campaigning. The parties appealed to the voters through logic and strongly addressed various national and developmental issues. Both the parties strategically expressed the optimistic future of the country under the dynamic leadership of their respective prime ministerial candidates. The findings of the study have important implications for political parties, political marketers and lawmakers as social media has occupied a significant place among young and educated voters and acts as a stimulant to voter engagement. The article adds value to the existing studies of political advertising and communication literature by theoretically adhering to Kaid and Johnston’s (2001) concept of ‘videostyle’, integrating the functional theory of political discourse, and appending the visual culture concept to political domain.

Was Madras Benighted? : The British Beauracratic Control Over the Swadeshi Press and Political Literature in the Madras Presidency, 1908-1912

Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India partitioned Bengal on 16th October 1905 and this move created a strom of protest all over India. The people were aroused by the spirit of nationalism and were determined to fight the British to the end. The nationalists launched the Swadeshi Movement in 1906 and the Indian National Congress declared that year as the “Swadeshi Year”. ‘Swadeshi’, ‘Boycott’. ‘Swaraj’ and ‘National Education’ were the main objects of the Congress. The Swadeshi Movement which originated in Bengal gradually spread to other parts of the nation. In the Madras Presidency, the Swadeshi nationalists like V.O.Chidambaram Pillai, C.Subramania Bharathi, Dr.Nanjunda Rao, K.Venkatramana Iyengar, Surendranath Arya, Subramania Siva, Neelakanda Bramahchari and others organized meetings to protest against the partition of the Bengal. Finding the Swadeshi Movement gaining momentum, the Government of Madras issued several circulars and ordinances to abrogate the freedom of expression and free criticism. To begin with, the Swadeshi leaders of Madras Presidency were mild in their approach which prompted the British to regard South India as the “benighted Presidency or a slept hollow”. This trend however changed when Bipin Chandra Pal visited Madras on 1st May 1907. He delivered a series of lectures from 2nd May 1907 at the Marina Beech, Madras. He spoke on concepts like ‘Swaraj’, ‘Swadeshi’ and ‘Boycott’. He made an indelible impression on his listeners. In addition to public meetings B.C.Pal, held private get-togethers wherein only a few trustworthy persons were invited. On receipt of the information regarding the deportation of Lala Lajipat Rai, B.C.Pal cancelled his other engagements in Madras and returned to Calcutta. Thus his lecture tour came to an end abruptly. However, the visit of B.C.Pal infused new vigour into the activities of the nationalists of Madras and whipped up the Swadeshi Movement. The Swadeshi nationalists inspired by the speeches of B.C.Pal, undertook extensive tours of the districts of Madras Presidency and explained to the public the efficacy of the Swadeshi Movement, such sustained propaganda work, the message of Swadeshi began to reach the grass-roots. The nationalist press of the period responded enthusiastically to the call given by the Swadeshi leaders and published articles infavour of the movement. The impact of the movement was such that the student community of the Madras Presidency involved themselves actively in the programmes launched by the Swadeshi leaders. The impact of the Surat split of 1907 was felt in the Madras Presidency. The split gave fillip to the extremist movement. During this period, G.Harshavartom Rao and V.O.Chidambaram Pillai spearheaded the ‘extremist thinking’ respectively in Telugu and Tamil speaking areas of this Presidency. The spirit of nationalism was very vigorous in places like Rajamundry, Masulipatnam and Coconada in Andhra region; and Tinnavelly and Tuticorin in Tamil country. Swadeshi meetings were organized in different parts of Southern districts of the Madras Presidency addressed by leaders like V.O.Chidambaram Pillai, Subramania Siva, Ethiraj Surendranath Arya, Padmanabha Iyyengar etc. During this period, the vernacular press played a consistent role in supporting the cause of the nationalists. It wrote editorials in support of the nationalists. Tamil papers like the Swadesamitran and the India carried articles which referred to the inhuman activities of the British against the Indians. S.Srinivasa Iyengar, editor of the India was convicted for publishing certain articles in the issues of the January and June 1908 which were regarded as seditious by the government. To escape official harassment, the India paper office shifted its abode to Pondicherry from where it resumed its publications more vigorously with C.Subramania Bharathi and S.Srinivachari. G.Subramania Iyer, the editor of the Swedesamitran was arrested on 21st August 1908, for publishing certain articles which were regarded as objectionable by the government. Taking into consideration his health condition, the government released G.Subramania Iyer on getting a bond for good behaviour for a period of one year under section 108 of Cr.P.C. for a sum of Rs.5,000/ - with two sureties of Rs.2,000/ - each. The government which entertained the firm view that newspaper and other literature created conditions conducive to revolution in India, Lord Minto II, the then Viceroy passed the Press Act of 1910 on 8th March, 1910 to curb seditious writings. Thus the year 1910 witnessed the enactment of the most vigorous and repressive legislation hitherto unknown to the Indian press. This Act authorised all local governments to declare forfeiture of any printed material which contained anti-Government matter. As a result, the provisions of the Press Act 1910 were invoked against many papers which were critical of the British Government. However, this repressive press measure did not hamper the spirit of the Indian nationalist press in anyway.

Global Capital, Comprador Business Class and Urban-Rural Divide in India

Indians speak in 1635 different mother tongues (as on 2001 Census) and the Union of India consists of 29 States and 7 Union Territories. Complex rules and regulations govern the Center–State relations. Given the cultural and ethnic diversity of this vast country, independent India should have, as advised by a section of constitutional experts, opted for a federal administrative structure (Federation of Indian States). Instead, the ruling elites led by the Indian National Congress adopted a Constitution in 1950 which described India as ‘Union of States’. Thus, the seed of ‘Center-Periphery dependence’ structure of governance was sown immediately after the transfer of power in 1947. This paper tries to address four basic questions. 1. How could the Comprador bourgeoisie and clientele class of the British India, retain their hegemony over the large part of the country? 2. How did the ruling class create an internal colony in rural Bharat? 3. What is the present socio-economic condition of Bharat? 4. What could be the possible consequences of the widening socio-economic gap between the urban India and rural Bharat for the future of the nation?

Emergence of Indian National Congress and Its Role in State Politics of Arunachal Pradesh

he political activities in Arunachal Pradesh are of recent origin as it remains unexposed to outer world for long time. Traditional socio-political institutions of various tribal communities were primarily responsible for managing people’s day-to-day affairs. People of Arunachal (erstwhile NEFA) were ignorant about the party politics and election system for a long time since independence but it doesn’t mean that they have no idea about the Indian National Congress. Before the emergence of modern polity in NEFA, some sections of people have an idea about the INC because of its active participation in Indian struggle for independence. However, the initiation of political party formation in the state started with the visit of Kumarasami Kamraaj, then president, AICC in 1967, at Pasighat where he talked about the necessity of foundation of Congress party in the state. With this backdrop, the paper aims to trace the emergence and growth of Indian National Congress, popularly known as “Congress” in Arunachal Pradesh. The data for the study were gathered through already available literature on state politics in Arunachal Pradesh and through face-to-face interview with some of the eminent political personalities of the state who played vital role in political development of Arunachal Pradesh.

A Satyagrahi as a Subject of Social Development in M.K. Gandhi’s Philosophy

The article deals with representatives of creative minority (the term by H. Bergson, A.J. Toynbee) in the process of social development. Satyagrahis play the similar role in M.K. Gandhi’s philosophy. This term originates from the central conception of Indian thinker - Satyagraha . It means the calling for resistance of moral developed person to all injustice around him by means of his soul-force. Gandhi’s image of an ideal man and his understanding of the role of such man in social-dynamical processes shows that philosopher’s intellectual and cultural features influenced his views. So, being the thinker, formed on the joint of two cultures (culture of traditional society and Modernity), Gandhi gives to his image of an ideal man Eastern and Western qualities. He offers to combine the moral rigor of traditional Indian ascetic with social activity, freedom and sense of personal responsibility, which are characteristic for individualistic ethics of Modernity. At the same time he rejects the understanding of social development as a technical progress, which is widespread in the West. The thinker connects this process with the personal improvement and harmonization of social relationships. The latter is impossible without participation of mediators between different social forces. Realizing this fact, Gandhi called his followers to become mediators between quarreling religious communities, castes and political parties in order to conciliate them. Such understanding of social development was in large part determined by social image of the thinker. Being the person formed on the crossroad of intercultural communications, Gandhi himself played the role of mediator between the Hindus and Mussulmans, between high-caste Hindus and untouchables, between different branches of Indian national congress, between economical elites and pure masses.

СОБЫТИЯ 1950 Г. В ВОСТОЧНОМ ПАКИСТАНЕ И ВАЛЛАБХАИ ПАТЕЛЬ

We characterize the emergence, beginning and end of the crisis in East Pakistan in 1950 and India’s reaction to the events on its North-Eastern borders. The central figure of the study is the Minister of Home Affairs and at the same time the Minister of States of India Vallabhbhai Patel – a politician of India, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and a friend of Jawaharlal Nehru, an indisputable authority in the ruling Indian National Congress, which for all that is very poorly studied in domestic science. Complex personality, the informal leader of India and Congress, he remained on the second place only at the behest of M. Gandhi. A devoted servant of the people, a native of a peasant family, who later became a brilliant lawyer and politician, V. Patel has repeatedly saved India at the crucial moments in history. The study is based on the Indian sources and continues our series of publications on the role and place of V. Patel in the history of independent India.

Vella Pillay: Revolutionary Activism and Economic Policy Analysis

Between the late 1940s and the early 1990s, Vella Pillay made a major contribution to South Africa’s liberation struggle. This article focuses on three aspects of his contribution: as a revolutionary procuring funds and training for the ANC’s military struggle, as a leader of the anti-apartheid and boycott movements, and as a highly trained intellectual producing economic policy analyses. In the mid 1960s, Pillay was suddenly prevented from holding leadership positions in the Congress Alliance; and, in the mid 1990s, he was again humiliated when the report of the Macroeconomic Research Group, of which he was Director, was dumped without any debate of its policy recommendations. This article aims to provide some reasons for the sidelining from history of someone so committed to the economic and political liberation of South Africans.

‘We Must Send a Gift Worthy of India and the Congress!’ War and political humanitarianism in late colonial South Asia

AbstractThe interwar period has recently been described as a highly internationalist one in South Asia, as a series of distinct internationalisms—communist, anarchist, social scientific, socialist, literary, and aesthetic1—took shape. At the same time, it has been argued that the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 drew to a close various opportunities for international association (at least, temporarily). Taking into account both these contradistinctive developments, this article deals with another—and thus far largely overlooked—South Asian internationalism in the form of wartime Indian humanitarianism. In 1938, the Indian National Congress helped organize an Indian medical mission to China to bring relief to Chinese victims of the Second Sino-Japanese War. By focusing on this initiative, this article traces the ideas, the practices, and the motives of Indian political humanitarianism. It argues that such initiatives, as they became part of much wider global networks of humanitarianism in the late 1930s and early 1940s, created new openings for Indian nationalists to establish international alliances. This article also examines the way in which political humanitarianism enabled these same nationalists to perform as independent leaders on an international stage, and argues that humanitarianism served as a tool of anti-colonial emancipation.

The princely states and the national movement: The case of Kashmir (1931–39)

The British created an invisible wall between ‘British India’ and the ‘Princely India’ by governing the latter indirectly through hereditary princes, who were supposedly fully autonomous, but for British ‘paramountcy’. The Indian National Congress had from the beginning adopted a policy of non-interference in the states’ affairs, which Mahatma Gandhi too upheld. However, nationalism began to cast its influence in the states despite this policy of non-interference. In Kashmir the opposition to the Maharaja took, first, the form of a Muslim agitation against the ruler’s oppressive measures. But in time as the movement against the Dogra Raj obtained increasing support from the nationalist leaders, notably Jawaharlal Nehru, the Muslim Conference (later named National Conference) leadership headed by Sheikh Abdullah gravitated towards the All-India States Peoples Conference and its spiritual parent, the Congress. The Congress too abandoned its policy of non-interference fully by 1939. This shift ultimately caused a rift in the valley, with Ch. Ghulam Abbas forming the Muslim Conference in opposition to Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference in 1941.

Ideas of Parity: Muslims, Sikhs and the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan

ABSTRACTHistorians have suggested that the politics of late colonial India centred on a battle between two discrete ideas: Indian and Muslim nationalism. Complicating this binary, this paper focuses on three conceptions of parity between religious groups, contending that this logic transcended Mohammad Ali Jinnah's and the Muslim League's call for constitutional equality between Hindus and Muslims to shape a wider debate about how to defy communal majoritarianism and exit identity politics altogether. Just as Jinnah sought to prevent Hindu dominance within a single state, the Akali Sikhs—influenced as much by a negative historical imagination as the contemporary logic of numbers—produced their own constitutional claim in order to avert Muslim supremacy in the Punjab. Meanwhile Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, president of the Indian National Congress between 1940 and 1946, posited a unique thesis: since modern India was the joint construction of Hindus and Muslims, parity already existed. Though he held that Jinnah's call for constitutional parity was consequently superfluous, Azad's idea of the shared nation led him to search for a genuine consensus, rather than a simple truce, between India's two major political parties. This paper argues that the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan, offering a degree of parity between communities whilst retaining Indian unity, represented the near-realisation of these three ideas.