Indian National Congress

Political party formed in 1885 by British civil servants and elite Indian reformers to represent Indian interests to the colonial government in India. By the early twentieth century, the Indian National Congress (INC) had become a mass movement with various moderate and radical factions engaged in the Indian struggle for independence; and MK Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru among its presidents. Following India’s first general election in 1951–52, the INC came to power under Nehru, espousing centre-left principles including secularism, welfare politics and social liberalism; however, subsequent INC-led governments pursued economic liberalisation and have also repressed and weakened unions and progressive movements, especially during the Emergency of 1975–77 imposed by Nehru’s successor Indira Gandhi. The INC’s political dominance waned in the mid-1970s, with the emergence of the opposing Janata Party coalition and heightened internal factionalism, though it remains a major party.