Congress Working Committee

Background and evolution

Before 1920, the Indian National Congress met once a year in an annual session and had little continuous organisation. When Gandhi led the party into mass politics, he reshaped its structure. The Nagpur session of December 1920 adopted a new constitution that created a hierarchy of committees, from villages to provinces, an All India Congress Committee (AICC) of a few hundred members, and a small Working Committee to act as the executive. It also reorganised provincial units on linguistic lines.

The Working Committee became the nerve centre of the national movement. It met frequently, issued instructions to Congress workers across India, and took the critical decisions on when to launch, suspend and resume mass movements. Its members included leaders such as Gandhi (often as a guiding figure rather than a formal member), Nehru, Patel, Maulana Azad, Rajendra Prasad and C. Rajagopalachari.

Key features and provisions

• Structure: president of the Congress, office-bearers and members nominated or elected; its decisions were placed before the AICC for ratification.
• Executive role: day-to-day control of the party, discipline and direction of campaigns.
• Movement decisions: the Bardoli resolution (February 1922) suspended Non-Cooperation after Chauri Chaura; in 1930 it authorised Gandhi to launch civil disobedience; in July 1942 at Wardha it adopted the resolution demanding British withdrawal, later ratified by the AICC at Bombay on 8 August.
• Negotiations: it considered British offers such as the Cripps proposals (1942), the Wavell Plan (1945), the Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) and the Mountbatten Plan (1947).
• Crises: in 1939, after Subhas Chandra Bose was re-elected Congress president against Gandhi's candidate, most CWC members resigned, leading Bose to resign and form the Forward Bloc.