UPSC Prelims 2015 Question:

With reference to Congress Socialist Party, consider the following statements:

1. It advocated the boycott of British goods and evasion of taxes.
2. It wanted to establish the dictatorship of proletariat.
3. It advocated separate electorate for minorities and oppressed classes.
   
   

Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

Explanation:

The socialist ideas assumed organizational form in May 1934. The socialists formed the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). The failure of the Civil Disobedience movement and accompanying depression unleashed a chain of events eventually that led to the formation of the CSP within the Congress.

• Within the Indian National Congress (INC), the CSP was a socialist faction. Socialists like Jayaprakash Narayan and Acharya Narendra Dev founded it in 1934.
  • The acceptance of a socialist vision of an independent India and of the socialist programme for the economic and social transformation of society were its significant characteristics, as were consistent and militant anti imperialism, anti-landlordism, the organization of workers and peasants in trade unions and kisan sabhas. 
  • In order to accomplish this goal, they were to organize the workers and peasants in their class organizations, engage in struggles for their economic demands, and establish them as the social base of the national struggle. They were to provide the Congress and the national movement with a socialist direction. They preferred the strategies Congress used.  So, statement 1 is not correct.
    
    
• The CSP aimed at achieving complete Independence of India from imperialism and the establishment of a socialist society. The blueprint adopted at one of its conferences strived for "All power to the toiling masses, nationalization of key industries, abolition of feudalism and landlordism without compensation, distribution of land and co-operative and collective farming." So, statement 2 is not correct
  
  
• CSP did not advocate a separate electorate for minorities and oppressed classes. So, statement 3 is not correct.
  
  

Therefore, option (4) is the correct answer.

Subject: History | Peasant and Labour Movements