UPSC Prelims 2015 · Question 26 of 98
UPSC Prelims 2015 question on Congress Socialist Party
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2015
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectModern History
- TopicIndian National Movement
- DifficultyHard
- TypeStatement
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?
Show answer
Answer: D. None
Verdict
The answer is none. The Congress Socialist Party advocated none of the three positions listed.
Analysis
Statement 1 is INCORRECT. Boycott of British goods and evasion of taxes were the methods of the Swadeshi movement and of the Civil Disobedience movement, not the defining programme of the CSP, which worked within the Congress and preferred the methods the Congress had adopted. Statement 2 is INCORRECT. Dictatorship of the proletariat is the language of the communist strand, and the socialists differed from the communists precisely on this. Statement 3 is INCORRECT. Separate electorates were a communal arrangement that the CSP, being anti communal and class oriented, did not advocate.
Source
Bipan Chandra, chapter on the rise of the left wing.
How to crack it
Place the organisation on the political map before testing any statement. The CSP was socialist but not communist, and nationalist but not separatist, and its programme was anti imperialism, anti landlordism and the organisation of workers and peasants inside the Congress. Once that position is fixed, statement 2 fails as too far left and statement 3 as communal. When a group sits between two better known positions, the distractors are usually borrowed from the neighbours on each side.