UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 131 of 150

Correct — B, Neither 1 nor 2. Both statements fail, each on a specific and well-documented point. Statement 1 gets the year right and the month wrong. The Congress Socialist Party belongs to 1934, but nothing happened in January. The sequence begins with the collapse of the Civil Disobedience Movement: young Congressmen who had come out of jail in 1933 and 1934 — Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Deva, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan, Asoka Mehta, Yusuf Meherally, Ram Manohar Lohia — concluded that the Congress needed a socialist programme and an organised left wing. Their first conference met at Patna on 17 May 1934, and the all-India Congress Socialist Party was formally constituted at Bombay in October 1934, where Acharya Narendra Deva became president, Jayaprakash Narayan general secretary and Minoo Masani joint secretary. May and October, not January. Statement 2 fails on the verb. Jawaharlal Nehru was unmistakably sympathetic to socialism — he said so from the Congress presidency at Lucknow in 1936 — and the socialists regarded him as their natural leader; but he never joined the Congress Socialist Party. He judged that his usefulness lay in carrying socialist ideas into the Congress mainstream rather than into a faction, and his refusal caused real bitterness among CSP members, who felt he was unwilling to act on his own slogans. Since statement 1 is wrong on the month and statement 2 is wrong on the fact of joining, the answer is 'Neither'. One nuance worth carrying: the CSP was never a rival party outside the Congress. It functioned as an organised group inside it, and its members held Congress membership throughout — which is precisely why the question of whether Nehru 'joined' it is a meaningful one at all.

• (a)Both 1 and 2 — Both statements are in fact wrong, so this is the exact inverse of the truth. It is the option for a candidate who recognises 1934 as the CSP year, accepts the month without checking, and then assumes that Nehru's well-known socialism must have meant party membership. Sympathy and membership are different things, and here the difference is the whole question.
• (c)Only 1 — This treats 'January 1934' as accurate. It is not. The Patna conference met on 17 May 1934 and the all-India party was constituted at Bombay in October 1934. Statement 1 is the kind of falsifier that hides in a correct year, so read the month as carefully as the year.
• (d)Only 2 — This accepts that Nehru formally joined the Congress Socialist Party, which he never did. He remained outside it while endorsing much of its programme, and his distance from the CSP is a standard point in every account of Congress politics in the later 1930s. Sympathy, presidential addresses on socialism and support from CSP members do not amount to membership.

The Congress Socialist Party was the organised left wing that emerged inside the Indian National Congress after the Civil Disobedience Movement was suspended. Its founders held that political independence alone would not change the lives of peasants and workers, that the Congress must adopt a programme of land reform and the transfer of power to producing classes, and that Gandhian methods needed to be supplemented by mass class organisation. They chose to work within the Congress rather than against it, and were formally constituted at Bombay in October 1934 after a first conference at Patna in May of that year. Their presence pushed the Congress towards the resolutions on agrarian reform and civil liberties of the mid-1930s, and towards Nehru's own socialist rhetoric.

Statements about the CSP almost always turn on one of two things: the exact founding moment, or the identity of who was and was not a member. This question uses both. The month is the trap in statement 1 — 1934 is right and 'January' is smuggled in beside it, and a candidate who has memorised the year alone will nod it through. The safeguard is to attach an event to the date rather than a bare number: Patna, 17 May 1934 for the first conference, Bombay, October 1934 for the all-India party. Statement 2 is the more instructive half. Nehru is the standard distractor in any socialism question of this period because his sympathies genuinely lay there, and the CSP's members openly wanted him. He stayed out. Learn the CSP's leadership as a fixed list — Acharya Narendra Deva as president, Jayaprakash Narayan as general secretary, Minoo Masani as joint secretary, with Lohia, Asoka Mehta, Achyut Patwardhan and Yusuf Meherally around them — and Nehru's absence from that list becomes obvious rather than something to be recalled.

• The Congress Socialist Party was formed in 1934, not in January: its first conference met at Patna on 17 May 1934 and the all-India party was constituted at Bombay in October 1934.
• Acharya Narendra Deva was its president, Jayaprakash Narayan its general secretary and Minoo Masani its joint secretary; Ram Manohar Lohia, Asoka Mehta, Achyut Patwardhan, Yusuf Meherally and Sampurnanand were among the leading figures.
• Jawaharlal Nehru never joined the CSP despite his declared socialism — a refusal that caused resentment among its members, who saw him as unwilling to translate his socialist slogans into organisational commitment.
• The CSP was a group inside the Indian National Congress, not a rival party; its members retained Congress membership. It left the Congress in 1948, after the Congress barred parties within it, and reconstituted itself as the Socialist Party.
• The party grew directly out of the disillusion that followed the suspension of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1934, and it drew its cadre from young Congressmen released from jail in 1933–34.

• Accepting a correct year with a wrong month. 1934 is right for the CSP; January is not — the milestones are Patna in May and Bombay in October.
• Treating the Congress Socialist Party as a separate party opposed to the Congress. It worked inside the Congress from 1934 until 1948, when it left and became the Socialist Party.
• Reading Nehru's socialism as CSP membership. He supported much of the programme and the socialists looked to him, but he never joined; Subhas Chandra Bose is the leader who did break away, forming the Forward Bloc in 1939.

UPPSC prefers two-statement sets in which one statement carries a slightly wrong date and the other a slightly wrong attribution — read the month and the verb, not just the noun. UPSC asks the same ground as programme questions ('with reference to the Congress Socialist Party, consider the following statements') or as leader-to-party matching. Learn the founding sequence, the office-bearers, and Nehru's deliberate distance.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who was the first General Secretary of the Congress Socialist Party formed in 1934?

  • (a)Acharya Narendra Deva
  • (b)Jayaprakash Narayan
  • (c)Minoo Masani
  • (d)Ram Manohar Lohia

  Answer(b) Jayaprakash Narayan — with Acharya Narendra Deva as president and Minoo Masani as joint secretary. Ram Manohar Lohia was a leading member but did not hold either of these two offices at the founding.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following best describes the position of the Congress Socialist Party between 1934 and 1947?

  • (a)A separate political party that contested elections against the Indian National Congress
  • (b)An organised group functioning within the Indian National Congress
  • (c)The Indian section of the Communist International
  • (d)A federation of trade unions with no political programme

  Answer(b) An organised group functioning within the Indian National Congress — its members retained Congress membership throughout. It left the Congress only in 1948, when the Congress barred parties within it, and then became the Socialist Party.