The break-up of Congress party was thus more than a mere passing realignment of political forces. It, in fact, constituted a water-shed in the life of the country. The Congress party could not have continued, as an amorphous mass of people with varying commitments, to retain the confidence of the people. In fact the stresses and strains had begun to show immediately after the 1967 elections. The Congress was fast losing its pre-eminent position in the political life of the country. Its mass-base was being rapidly eroded in several States. The rank and file of this great party had become disillusioned and confused. The party lacked coherence and purposiveness. It lacked ideological fervour and mass appeal. With a far too massive majority in States and at the Centre for a long period of time, a typical inertia and lethargy had set in both in the leadership and the workers. The great divide that came about last year was, therefore, inevitable and inescapable. The Congress went through a crisis unparalleled in its history and emerged from it with greater strength and ideological commitment to the cause of the poor and the down-trodden and to the concept of secularism.
As I mentioned earlier, the period of last eighteen months gave a traumatic experience to the political life of the country, but unless correct lessons are drawn from it and acted upon, it would become totally irrelevant to the national perspective. In fact history will hold us responsible for missing so great an opportunity to bring together all the progressive, democratic and secular forces in the country to accelerate the pace of change towards a new socialistic order.
The basic lessons obviously relate to the question of honouring the socio-economic commitments that we made to people not only during the last year or two, but over the last two decades. Over these years, the gap between what the Congress promised and what it achieved had been widening. The Congress has always been in the vanguard of struggle, whether it related to national freedom or emancipation of the socially and economically backward or suppressed masses. When we won independence, we incorporated in the Preamble to the Constitution the dream that we had of a resurgent India. We promised to all citizens: justice—social, economic and political; liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; and equality of status and of opportunity. We had reiterated that we shall strive to secure a social order in which justice—social, economic and political—shall inform all the institutions of national life. We had also promised ourselves that the operation of economic system will not be allowed to result in the concentration of economic power to the common detriment. Successive election manifestoes of the Congress had spelt out the detailed phasing of the programmes and held out a promise of their implementation. In the light of this it would be worthwhile to examine as to what extent we tried and how far we succeeded in achieving our objectives.
