Much has been said about India’s party politics. It has travelled though many phases. It has been characterised differently at different points of time e.g. One Party Dominant System, competition between national and regional parties, a clear fight between two broad alliances and a recurrent appearance of third front etc. This third front business usually represents the regional parties (though some of them claim to be national parties) and an uncanny opportunism disguised as regional aspirations.
In India, government formation at the centre has always been an interesting game. Right from the beginning the Congress had a decisive advantage owing to its leadership in the independence struggle. After the constituent assembly was formed, congress members occupied key positions in the government. But the political ethics were such that the first government accommodated leaders from other parties as well. It reconciled and accommodated leaders from both ends of the spectrum to form the first cabinet. The eventual exit of these leaders from the government due to difference of opinion is a different matter. What needs to be underlined is the pattern of party politics adn the culture of reconciliation. However, this ethic of politics did not sustain for very long. The conciliatory approach was soon taken over by a confronting approach. This was reflected at both national and regional level where congress lead central government was at odds with state governments lead by other parties e.g. Communist Kerala, DMK lead Tamil Nadu etc.
We know the history of the post Nehruvian congress party. We know how it splintered and how its factions fought amongst themselves to claim legacy to THE Congress party. The Congress party had enviable hold...
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...rience but from the contempt for Babuji. The Charan Singh-Babuji rivalry dated back to state politics in Bihar and UP. Babuji’s decision not to merge his Congress for Democracy into Janata was also driven by a hope that he wanted to keep his independent leadership intact. Had he gotten an opportunity to claim the top job in the government with the help of support from other parties, a separate party would have made it easier for him. The PM Morarji was not very different in this regard either. His statement on the floor of the house “I will remain unruffled even if the skylab falls” speaks volumes.
My do not intend to label Janata government as an epic fail. It did a remarkable job in terms of railways under Madhu Danadwate and foreign policy under Vajpayee but such one off success wasn’t enough for a party which was voted into power with humongous expectations.
Party is an inevitable feature of the democracy and it is defined as ‘an autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in the hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government’ (Caramani, 2011, p.220). Parties are ubiquitous in modern political systems and they perform a number of functions, they are: coordination, contesting elections, recruitment, and representation (Caramani, 2011). Political parties are the product of the parliamentary and electoral game, and party systems reflect the social oppositions that characterize society when parties first appear (Coxall et al., 2011).
In Nehru’s India, women were victims of a “passive revolution” that subtly advanced bourgeoisie men of higher castes under a guise of parliamentary democracy. Though women have presided over the Indian National Congress, served as a prime minister, and represent a large part of India’s la...
When looking at and understanding the historical aspect of the party systems, it is important to note that there are some number of definitions of party systems. To some degree, a party system simply can be defined as the competition between parties in the political realm in efforts to gain the support for their give...
Tavits, Margit. "Party Systems in the Making: The Emergence and Success of New Parties in New Democracies." British Journal of Political Science 38.1 (2008): 113-33. JSTOR. Web. 26 May 2014.
Politics is today commonly associated with ‘party politics’ where each party represents a certain group of people in Parliament and considers issues through a specific lens. Britain has three main political parties; first, the Conservative Party on the right, which advocates the encouragement of private property, the preservation of a strong military, and the conservation of traditional cultural values. Second, the Labour Party on the left which is closely affiliated to trade unions, promotes nationalization, a welfare state and a Keynesian approach to economics; and the third, Liberal Democrats at the centre who put an emphasis on individual liberty, equality, a mixed economy, a developed welfare state and a reformed democratised system of government. Their main roles are both on the long term and on the short term. The long-term goals of a political party include public engagement where parties ignite the public’s interest and incite them to participate in debates in a sustained manner. A political party’s short-term role would be the mobilisation of the population, which looks at how people vote in one instance, in a referendum or an election for example. However, if one looks more closely at how effective political parties are in terms of their roles in society, we can notice a gap between what they aim to achieve and the observable outcome. This suggests that there have been changes in the way political parties operate, which could lead to the decline of the parties. This essay will argue that first, party organisation can cause a decline in memberships and lead to a decline of a party. Second, a change in society can affect the parties; class and partisan dealignment has pushed parties to transform themselves when it comes ...
While Lalvani claimed that Britain built the framework for India’s government and that the transition to unified India was peaceful, they
Political parties have several roles in government. They recruit, choose, and present candidates for public office. They inform and mobilize supporters through campaigns, defining issues, and even criticizing other candidates. Parties act as a bonding agent guaranteeing their candidate is worthy of office and will act according to their partisanship, or firm allegiance to a party. Most importantly they unite diverse interests and make collective action possible. Parties out of power act as a watchdog, keeping a close eye on the actions of the party in power for an error or indiscretion to use against them in the next election. (pg. 251-252)
The Indian government is corrupted and makes promises it is unable to keep. In The White Tiger, Balram describes that the government is “...the world’s greatest democracy. What a fucking joke.” (Adiga 145). When Balram lived in Laxmangarh his right to vote for the prime minister was taken from him, due to the fact that running candidates pay the current government to make sure they are elected. The government system also enables the rich to get richer. They do this by immensely taxing the poor and enforcing the caste system on the poor. The caste system is a labeling system you were born into and of what you are expected of in life. For example Balram had the caste of Halwai, which is derived from “sweet-maker”. This meant Balram was expected to work...
Electoral systems exist to allow members of the society, express their preferences on candidates who are to represent them. This paper pays attention to the three electoral systems; the Proportional system, the fast past the post (FPTP) and the Instant runoff voting (IRV). I am going to focus on the differences between the PR, FPTP and IRV; attention will be laid also on how the electoral system shapes the relative structure and strength of the political parties.
Political parties have been in a declining state in recent political evolution and has provoked numerous discussions/arguments whether the political parties have been indeed in such a state or whether they have been simply restructuring their organisational and/or ideological principles to withstand certain challenges. Several theories were introduced/developed in the recent years so as to distinguish the “ideal” behavioural type of political party development. The most renowned “ideal” party types are the cadre party type, the mass party type (Duverger, 1954) and the catch-all party type (Kirchheimer, 1966). Nevertheless, a recent theory regarding party types proposed initially by Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1995) was the “Cartel Party” which also drew a lot of academic interest. The “Cartel Party” is a new model of political party development suggested by Richard Katz & Peter Mair (1995) as the last decades the electoral support and partisanship levels have been decreasing substantially, while voter volatility increased; thus political parties began to seek state subsidies and other much needed resources directly through the state, in order to secure “control” of the electoral rules, subsidies from the state and the media as well. Concomitantly, political parties allegedly employ their domination power to even “control” which new political parties may join the “cartel”, and which are left out of the equation. However, this new prospect within the political parties’ mechanism, ultimately alters their organisational and ideological principles, thus in this way give rise to the so-called “Cartel Parties”. In short, the theory of Cartelisation over the political parties suggested by Katz & Mair propose that political parties progre...
India is the center of a very serious problem in the world today. It’s a very diverse place with people from many different religious backgrounds, who speak many different languages and come from many different regions. They are also separated economically. Two of the country’s religious sects, Muslims and Hindus, have been in conflict for hundreds of years. Their feelings of mistrust and hatred for each other are embedded in all those years and will not leave easily. What’s most disturbing is that there seems to be no plan for reconciliation available. There are numerous reasons for this conflict.
According to Lipset and Rokkan, modern party systems are defined by historical conflicts and the lasting identities created by the interaction of these conflicts and social institutions that can explain national
In modern society, political parties serve as a link between state and society. Anton Downs wrote a well-known definition for political parties as “a team of men seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election.” Political parties carry out a political leadership role in a modern democracy. To participate successfully in the political process and to contribute to the consolidation of democracy, political parties have to demonstrate certain functions. This essay will mainly discuss different functions of political parties in two different political systems, namely parliamentary system and presidential system. In both systems, political parties serve common functions of selection, exercising political
Many Indians feel that the Quit India Movement was one of the most influential and successful moments in history. The s...
Political parties are the link between general society and the representative machinery of our government. In order for an effective democracy to be in place, these political parties must be continually operative in the functions that they carry out. They are vehicles in which groups of people as well as individuals work together to secure political power, and to exercise that...