In the given question, a statement of Assertion is followed by a statement of Reason. Mark the correct answer.

Assertion: During the freedom movement it was seen that the Congress was an ideological coalition.

Reason: Peasants, industrialists, urban dwellers, villagers, workers and owners were not allowed to be a part of the Congress.

The Assertion is correct but the Reason is incorrect.

The correct answer is Option 4 - The Assertion is correct but the Reason is incorrect.

Assertion: During the freedom movement it was seen that the Congress was an ideological coalition.

Reason: Peasants, industrialists, urban dwellers, villagers, workers and owners were not allowed to be a part of the Congress.

CORRECTION in Reason: Peasants and industrialists, urban dwellers and villagers, workers and owners, middle, lower and upper classes and castes, all found space in the Congress.

Congress evolved from its origins in 1885 as a pressure group for the newly educated, professional and commercial classes to a mass movement in the twentieth century. This laid the basis for its eventual transformation into a mass political party and its subsequent domination of the political system. Thus the Congress began as a party dominated by the English speaking, upper caste, upper middle-class and urban elite. But with every civil disobedience movement it launched, its social base widened. It brought together diverse groups, whose interests were often contradictory. Peasants and industrialists, urban dwellers and villagers, workers and owners, middle, lower and upper classes and castes, all found space in the Congress. Gradually, its leadership also expanded beyond the upper caste and upper class professionals to agriculture based leaders with a rural orientation. By the time of Independence, the Congress was transformed into a rainbow-like social coalition broadly representing India’s diversity in terms of classes and castes, religions and languages and various interests.

Many of these groups merged their identity within the Congress. Very often they did not and continued to exist within the Congress as groups and individuals holding different beliefs. In this sense the Congress was an ideological coalition as well (ASSERTION). It accommodated the revolutionary and pacifist, conservative and radical, extremist and moderate and the right, left and all shades of the centre. The Congress was a ‘platform’ for numerous groups, interests and even political parties to take part in the national movement. In pre-Independence days, many organisations and parties with their own constitution and organisational structure were allowed to exist within the Congress.