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weakness would be equally obvious if we were to take note of the
fact that there can be no unity of interest between the different
constituents of the coalition, between Muslims and scheduled castes,
for instance. The coalition was also unstable since any attempt by
the Congress to widen its support base among Hindus, as under Indira
Gandhi, tended to alienate Muslims and vice versa. To put it
differently, the support base could hold and be effective best in
the absence of a serious challenge and in conditions of stability.
The period of stability ended with Nehru in 1964.
The Congress leadership was dominated
by Brahmins during the freedom struggle just as was the bureaucracy
of virtue of the same fact of Western education. This dominance came
to be challenged in south India and western India soon after
independence, partly because the Brahmin presence there was rather
thin since Brahmins there were migrants from north India, and partly
because an anti-Brahmin movement had prospered in the Madras
presidency as well as the Bombay presidency under the Raj. In both
these regions the party organization was effectively taken over by
upcoming peasant (earlier warrior as well) communities by the
mid-fifties. A similar change could not take place in north India
and that has been its Achilles' heel there. North India accounts for
around two-thirds of the electorate and representation in
Parliament.
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