Swatantra Party

The Swatantra Party was an Indian classical liberal political party that existed from 1959 to 1974. It was founded by C. Rajagopalachari in reaction to what he felt was the Jawaharlal Nehru-dominated Indian National Congress's increasingly socialist and statist outlook.

The party had a number of distinguished leaders, most of them old Congressmen, like C. Rajagopalachari, Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu, Minoo Masani, N.G. Ranga, Darshan Singh Pheruman, Udham Singh Nagoke and K.M. Munshi. The provocation for the formation of the party was the left turn that the Congress took at Avadi and the Nagpur Resolutions.

Swatantra stood for a market-based economy and the dismantling of the "Licence Raj" although it opposed laissez-faire policies. Considered to be on the economic right of the Indian political spectrum, Swatantra was not a religion-based party, unlike the Hindu nationalism of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. In 1960, Rajagopalachari and his colleagues drafted a 21-point manifesto detailing why Swatantra had to be formed even though they had been Congressmen and associates of Nehru during the struggle for independence. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was highly critical of Swatantra and dubbed it as belonging to "the middle ages of lords, castles and zamindars".