Who among the following was not a member of the Socialist group in the Congress Party ?

Correct — B, (b) Rajendra Prasad. The socialist group inside the Congress took organised form as the Congress Socialist Party, founded in 1934 by younger Congressmen — many of them released from jail after the Civil Disobedience Movement — who wanted the Congress to commit itself to a programme of socialism rather than to independence alone. It was formed at Patna in May 1934 and held its first all-India conference at Bombay in October of that year; Acharya Narendra Dev presided over its founding and Jayaprakash Narayan became its general secretary. It never left the Congress in those years: it worked as a bloc within it, pressing for the nationalisation of key industries, the abolition of landlordism without compensation, the right of the peasantry and the workers to organise, and a constituent assembly elected on adult franchise. Rajendra Prasad belonged to the other wing of the same party. He was a Gandhian of the strictest kind — a Champaran veteran, a 'no-changer' during the council-entry controversy of the 1920s, president of the Congress in 1934, 1939 and again in 1947, later president of the Constituent Assembly and the first President of India — and the old guard he represented was precisely what the socialists were pushing against. The tension was open: the Congress leadership of the mid-1930s regarded the socialists' economic programme with suspicion, and it was in Prasad's own year as president that the party had to accommodate the new group without adopting its aims. The other three names in the option list are all men of the socialist group itself.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)Jayaprakash Narayan — The best-known member of the group and its first general secretary. Jayaprakash Narayan, who had studied in the United States and come back a Marxist, was among the organisers of the Patna meeting of 1934 and gave the Congress Socialist Party much of its early direction and literature. He went underground during the Quit India Movement and escaped from Hazaribagh jail, later moved away from Marxism towards Gandhian sarvodaya and the bhoodan movement, and returned to public life in the 1970s at the head of the movement that carried his name. He was a socialist inside the Congress by definition, and cannot be the answer to a question asking who was not.
• (c)N.G. Ranga — The peasant leader of the group. Professor N.G. Ranga of Andhra worked with the Congress socialists in their early years and is chiefly remembered for organising the peasantry: he was a moving force behind the All India Kisan Sabha founded at Lucknow in 1936, of which he became general secretary with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati as president. His later career moved in the opposite direction — he broke with socialism, and in 1959 became the first president of the Swatantra Party, formed with C. Rajagopalachari in opposition to state planning and land ceilings — but that came long after the period this question is about.
• (d)Narendra Dev — Acharya Narendra Dev presided over the founding of the Congress Socialist Party and remained one of its principal thinkers, combining Marxist economics with a scholar's interest in Buddhist philosophy and a long involvement in education at Kashi Vidyapith and Lucknow University. When the socialists left the Congress after independence he was among the leaders of the Socialist Party and later of the Praja Socialist Party. He is a founder of the group, not an outsider to it.

By the early 1930s the Congress contained several distinct currents, and questions of this kind test whether a candidate can sort its leaders by wing rather than merely recognise their names. The Gandhian old guard — Rajendra Prasad, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajagopalachari — held to the constructive programme, trusteeship and non-violent struggle for independence, and was wary of class-based politics. The socialists, organised as the Congress Socialist Party from 1934, wanted the national movement to carry an economic programme: nationalisation of key industries, land to the tiller, abolition of landlordism, and the organisation of workers and peasants. Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose stood closer to the socialists in outlook — Nehru's speeches of the 1930s are full of socialist language and he presided over the Congress in years when the group was strongest — without belonging to the party itself. Outside the Congress altogether stood the Communist Party of India, which for a period followed a line of its own and later worked within the Congress and the trade unions. The socialist current fed directly into two mass organisations of the later 1930s, the All India Kisan Sabha of 1936 and the trade unions, and it left the Congress in 1948 to become the Socialist Party, from which the later socialist parties of Indian politics descend. Rajendra Prasad's own trajectory — Champaran, the presidency of the Congress, the Constituent Assembly, Rashtrapati Bhavan — belongs to the mainstream of the party rather than to any of its factions.

Key facts

• The Congress Socialist Party was formed in 1934 by Congressmen who wanted the party to adopt a socialist economic programme; it functioned as a group inside the Congress.
• It was founded at Patna in May 1934 and held its first all-India conference at Bombay in October 1934, with Acharya Narendra Dev presiding and Jayaprakash Narayan as general secretary.
• Its programme included nationalisation of key industries, abolition of landlordism, the right of workers and peasants to organise, and a constituent assembly on adult franchise.
• Among its leading figures were Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev, Rammanohar Lohia, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan, Ashok Mehta and Yusuf Meherally.
• N.G. Ranga worked with the group as a peasant organiser and became general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha founded at Lucknow in 1936, with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati as its president.
• N.G. Ranga later broke with socialism and became the first president of the Swatantra Party, founded in 1959 with C. Rajagopalachari.
• Rajendra Prasad was a Gandhian of the old guard — a Champaran veteran and a 'no-changer' — who was Congress president in 1934, 1939 and 1947, president of the Constituent Assembly and the first President of India.
• The socialists left the Congress in 1948 and reorganised as the Socialist Party, later the Praja Socialist Party.

Common traps

• Assuming Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose were members of the Congress Socialist Party. Both were sympathetic; neither joined it.
• Placing N.G. Ranga on the right because of the Swatantra Party. That came in 1959, decades after his work with the socialists and the Kisan Sabha.
• Confusing the Congress Socialist Party with the Communist Party of India, or with the later Socialist Party and Praja Socialist Party.
• Reading Rajendra Prasad's presidency of the Congress in 1934 as evidence that he led the new socialist group formed in the same year.
• Ignoring the bold-italic 'not' and picking the most famous socialist in the list.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who among the following was the first general secretary of the Congress Socialist Party formed in 1934 ?

  • (a)Acharya Narendra Dev
  • (b)Jayaprakash Narayan
  • (c)Rammanohar Lohia
  • (d)Achyut Patwardhan

  Answer(b) Jayaprakash Narayan

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who among the following presided over the All India Kisan Sabha at its formation in 1936 ?

  • (a)N.G. Ranga
  • (b)Swami Sahajanand Saraswati
  • (c)Baba Ramchandra
  • (d)Indulal Yagnik

  Answer(b) Swami Sahajanand Saraswati