Gandhi’s Congress absorbed conflicting constituencies until the contradictions overwhelmed him

Evidence

Like Shiva in the myth, who swallowed poison to save the world in the story of the Samudra Manthan—the churning of the Ocean of Milk—Gandhi stood foremost among his peers and fellow-churners, and tried to swallow the poison that rose up from the depths as he helped to roil the new nation into existence. Unfortunately, Gandhi was not Shiva, and the poison eventually overwhelmed him. The greater the Congress party’s impulse to hegemony, the more violently things blew apart. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 158

Categorization

• SEED: The Shiva-poison metaphor is a vivid way to frame how a movement that absorbs every contradiction eventually bursts — usable in writing about coalition politics.