The First 30 Years of Independent India (1947-1977)

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Friends, here are some important points you should know abut the First 30 years of Independent India. These points are useful for all competitive exams especially for SSC CGL Exam 2014 (except banking exams). Happy Reading :)

• Election commission was set up to take care of the practical matters  conducting elections across the length and breadth of the country.
• The Election commission was came up with a novel idea of having symbols from every day life to represent political parties and candidates. 
• First General Elections (important points to remember)

• Held in the year 1952
• Separate ballot box with symbol for each candidate
• Symbols of every day life for visual identification
• 46% of voters voted
• Illiteracy (more than 85%)
• Universal Adult Franchise
• Voter only had to drop the ballot paper in the box
• Congress got majority
• Potti Sriramulu demanding the formation of a separate Telugu speaking state died after 58 days of fasting in October 1952.
• Consequently the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu were created (recently the Andhra Pradesh state has split into Telangana and Andhra states)
• The Constituent Assembly had called for social, economic and political justice and equality of status and opportunity, it put social and economical change at the top of the agenda of modern India.
• The Planning Commission was set up with in a month of the inauguration of a new constitution. 
• The First Five Year Plan focused on agricultural and stressed on the need for increasing food production, development of transport and communications and the provision of social services. 
• Second Five year Plan on-wards the emphasis shifted to Industries. 
• The major highlight of the period was the 42nd constitutional Amendment which brought about a series of changes. It had the following aims. 
• Excluding the courts from election disputes
• Strengthening the central government vis-a-vis the state governments
• Providing maximum protection from jucicial challenges to the social and economic transformation legislation.
• Making the judiciary subservient to Parliament
• India also set up an impressive institutional frame work with independent institution like the judiciary, Election commission, comptroller and Auditor General and so on. Bureaucratic neutrality was also important achievement.
• Official Language Act was passed in 1963 made Hindi imposed in all states. 
• The DMK believed that act to be an attempt to foist Hindi on the rest of the country and they began state-wide protest.
• The shift of price-incentive and technocratic strategy between the years 1964-67 is called "Green Revolution"
• 1967 elections show the big transition in India where many regional parties came to power. 
• The congress party for the first time suffered a major set back both in center and in many sttes.
• Emergency Period :
• On 25th June 1975,  Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed an emergency in the Country. Due to this emergency
• Fundamental Rights stood Suspended
• Censorship was imposed on the press and
• Prominent political leaders were arrested 
• In the above ways, the Emergency period was a set back to the Indian democracy. 

That's all for now friends. In our next post we shall discuss about the Emerging political trends from 1977 to present. Happy Reading :)

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