Democracy, Governance and Political Parties in India

K.C. Suri 1
Carolyn Elliott 2
David Hundt 3

Abstract:
The party political domain of India is replete with a large number of parties representing the tapestry of
Indian society. Many of them are based in specific regions and states, built around social and linguistic
identities. While this enhanced the representative character of the parties, it also contributed to varied
patterns of political competition and unstable governments. The two major national parties – the Congress
and the Bharatiya Janata Party -- becoming coalitionable heralded an era of coalition governments both at
the Centre and states, enabling parties to increase their power and their pay-offs. Parties across the political
spectrum have tended to converge on macro-economic policy, but continue to diverge on social policies
and larger issues that confront India, such as nation building and secularism. Chronic lack of internal
democracy coupled with the rise of political corruption and clientelist practices are matters of serious
concern. A broader view of governance, resisting temptations to concentrate power and pursue personal
enrichment, would enable parties to deliver policies for a better, more just society.

Key words: India, democracy, governance, parties

We may deprecate India’s political parties, the way they function and the means party
leaders adopt to maximize electoral support. We may blame them for the ills we see in
Indian society and political practice. Such an attitude is not unjustified. Yet we cannot
ignore the role parties have played in bringing about a massive democratic political
transformation over the past six decades since independence. This transformation was by
no means inevitable: most former colonies went through periods of political instability,
military coups and authoritarian regimes, but India has moved towards legally-based
democratization. The mediating role political parties have played in bringing about this
democratic transformation in a relatively peaceful manner, in a short span of time and
under conditions considered not very conducive to democratic development, cannot be
underestimated. They have assisted in the consolidation and expansion of democracy,
popularized the notions of equality, social justice and freedom, and opened doors for
inclusion, voice and empowerment of the weaker sections of society. Superficially
political parties may appear to divide people, but parties also attenuate conflict, and show
the way for people to come together. Thus, the party domain in India is full of intense
struggle over contentious social and policy issues and also the space in which
compromise and consensus are hammered out. What is required, therefore, is a critical
and balanced assessment of parties that takes into account their strengths and
achievements as well their weaknesses and failings in furthering democracy and
governance.

1
Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad
2
Department of Political Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, United States
3
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

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Political parties in the Western democracies have declined as mass democratic parties in
recent decades, especially in terms of membership, not to speak of the dissolution of
communist parties in Europe and Australia. Parties in India, by contrast, continue to be
vibrant and have millions of members. The self-reported membership of Indian parties
ranges from about a million for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to about 40
million for the Congress, and more than 100 million for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
It is true that the average length of party membership or affiliation has become short, as
party members and supporters shift frequently from one party to the other, depending to a
large extent on whether a party is in power or not. If we leave aside the strength and
durability of party attachments, the fact remains that large number of people are willing
to attach themselves to a party at a given point of time. Parties occupy a central place in
the collective life and imagination. They are a constant feature in the television and
electronic media, constituting, along with cinema, the popular culture in India. The huge
numbers of ordinary people who gather at the meetings of political leaders, either out of
curiosity to see the leader, liking for the party or out of an expectation of collective and
individual welfare benefits, provides a testimony to the primacy of political parties to the
people of India.

Political parties have played a crucial role in effecting social and political transformation,
but the domain of parties has also undergone tremendous change. In the decades
following Independence, the plural and federal character of India’s polity quickly
asserted itself. Within two decades of the first general elections, the dominance of the
Congress party began to crack. A large number of new parties emerged, and many of
them became ruling parties at the national or state level or both. In many states, the
national parties have been marginalized or become adjuncts to their state-based rivals.
This flux in the party domain and the proliferation of parties has given rise to coalition
governments, which have become a regular feature of Indian politics since the 1990s. A
large number of parties have shared power in these coalitions over the years. For instance
the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, under Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, ruled at the Centre from 1999 to 2004 with about 30 different partners. The
two governments formed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) also
drew on the support of more than 10 alliance partners. Thus the ability to secure the
electoral support of regional and small parties has determined the fate of national parties
in general elections over the past two decades. The BJP realized this in 1998, while the
Congress took a few more years to accept the changed reality. In the 2014 Lok Sabha
(lower house) elections, the BJP under Narendra Modi’s leadership won an absolute
majority. But it could do so only in alliance with several large and small parties in
different states. In recognition of this situation, the party has formed a coalition
government rather than a single-party government. Despite these alliances, the BJP has
not been able to muster majority support in the Rajya Sabha (upper house), which has left
the government unable to secure approval of major legislation. It is not certain whether
the BJP alliance can reach majority-mark on its own by the time its term ends in 2019.

The rapid rise in the effective number of parties, changes in the relative strength of the
national and regional parties and the political equations between them, the inability of

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any one party to control the parliament, and the presence of different parties and different
patterns of party competition in states have impacted the course of India’s
democratization and governance. The rise of regional parties to power in states and their
prominent role in the coalition governments at the Centre has brought state-level agendas
and electoral prospects into play at the national level (see James Manor’s article in this
collection). In joining and partaking in coalitions, the main consideration for regional
parties is whether or not such a step will augment their electoral prospects in their home
states. The article by K.K. Kailash and Balveer Arora in this collection speaks of this
scenario as a ‘revolving door’ with both spatial and temporal dimensions. These frequent
shifts in coalition partners indicate that Indian parties are yet to devise norms for sharing
power and forging durable alliances.

Democratic process has an inherent tendency not only to bring differences into the open
and polarize people but also to foster moderation, thereby persuading and pushing
individuals and social groups to gradually move away from extreme positions on issues
and policies. In the final analysis, the latter would prevail over the former. If that does not
happen, democracy fails. Such a process can be tortuous and sometimes frustrating.
Participation in elections, the need to build broad-based electoral support and the
experience of exercising power in government tend to bring about moderation in political
parties that begin their life with radical agenda either on the left or on the right. It is
interesting that observers of Indian politics perceive this phenomenon in different ways:
some criticize parties such as the CPI(M) and the BJP for obdurately sticking to their
traditional ideology without being able to adapt to the changing world or showing
reluctance to moderate. Others accuse the same parties of abandoning their ideology and
making too many compromises, whereby they lose their special identity and become just
like any other party. Divergent arguments about the convergence of parties and
moderation process in India require systematic studies. Whether convergence or
moderation is a reflection of the maturation of Indian democracy or something to be
deplored requires consideration. How much policy and programmatic difference is
required for voters to have a real choice in elections is another question.

Policy space for parties is not unidimensional. Therefore, we cannot judge parties with
regard to their moderation, compromise or the abandonment of their traditional ideology,
or conversely their maintenance of extreme positions, by looking at their policies on a
single dimension. Moderation is also not something that we expect to happen in the short
term. It is a long-term process, and it is difficult to detect the changes that keep
happening in the radical parties at the subterranean level that take time to come into open.
So those who perceive that parties are reluctant to moderate may have to look at the
multiple dimensions of party policy and practice, rather than merely going by the
protestations by those on the extremes or occasional rhetoric of the leaders.

Some even deplore parties for becoming so indistinguishable in terms of polices that the
only choice left for people is one of choosing between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But
such a view does not seem to be entirely correct. Parties are divided on several issues and
policies. We should keep in mind that voters make choices that have far-reaching
implications for the nature of the state and government. Parties may not differ greatly in

3
respect to macro-economic policy frameworks, but they tend to take divergent positions
on social policy issues such as reservations or the need for a common civil code. They
may also differ on the meaning of secularism and how best to realize it, or how to build a
strong and united India. So, it is possible that parties may converge on certain policy
dimensions yet differ on others. Sometimes small differences matter in making choices.

For instance, the convergence on economic policy since the introduction of the
liberalization reforms is a striking pattern. The Congress party, which for a long time
stood for building a socialistic pattern of society through promoting state-owned
industries and centralized planning, ushered in the reforms. The socialist parties that had
voiced opposition to these reforms continued them when they came to power in 1996 as
the United Front. Communist parties too, which had taken a strident stand opposing these
policies, participated in the United Front government or supported it from outside. The
BJP, which had advocated swadeshi and a level playing field for Indian businesses,
followed a similar set of reform policies when it came to power.

The BJP, which grew in strength on a plank of Hindu cultural nationalism, has relegated
its demands for the construction of a temple in Ayodhya, a uniform civil code and
abolition of the special status for the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir to the
backburner. It has forged alliances with several other parties that have little or no interest
in this agenda. Similarly, the two major communist parties have long abandoned their
revolutionary programme of establishing a proletarian state through armed struggle and
taken to the parliamentary path, as was demonstrated when Indrajit Gupta, the general
secretary of the Communist Party of India, joined the United Front government at the
Centre in 1996 as Home Minister. The Communist Party India (Marxist), the more leftist
of the two parties, ran governments in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, and
played an active role in the formation of party alliances and coalition governments (see
Hans Löfgren’s article in this collection). It is ironic that the CPM-led government in
West Bengal faced mass resistance to its industrial land acquisition policies, which
culminated in its defeat in the 2011 Assembly election. In another article in this special
issue, Hugo Gorringe analyses how the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) has
transformed itself from a radical movement party that stayed away from elections into a
party in the arena of electoral and coalition politics. It has not gained power itself, but it
has gained wider recognition and access to patronage. This party provides us with another
example of the moderation process and how radical parties get institutionalized.

But leaders of the ideologically oriented parties face serious dilemmas in their move
toward moderation. In his article in this collection, Mitra argues that despite the BJP’s
electoral success the party’s leadership remains ambivalent in its moderation. Given an
appropriate mix of guaranteed space and the experience of office, he finds a move
towards moderation by extremist parties is possible but not inevitable. Analyzing the Left
Front government and the CPI(M) politics in West Bengal, Löfgren considers the
dilemmas faced by this party due to its participation in parliamentary politics. It
continued to advocate an alternative model of economic and political development while
pursuing policies of moderation, constituting what Löfgren terms a ‘deficit in
imagination’. Ineffective articulation of its actual position as a social-democratic party

4
led to the party’s electoral defeat by an opposition that accused it of abandoning its pro-
poor and proletarian ideology in favour of courting the capitalist class for economic
development. Similarly, as Gorringe points out, there are people in and with the VCK
who accuse the leadership of compromise, abandoning the party ideology and principles,
and turning the party into just like any other party.

Democratic politics has increased the representative character of parties over time. This
happened in two ways. Many parties that are catchall types in their claim and practice
have drawn more and more sections of society into the arena of politics, providing
avenues for the elites from the socially and educationally backward classes to occupy
leadership positions in party and government. Where this social balancing within a party
did not keep pace with the pressures bubbling up all over the society, new parties
emerged in the 1990s and beyond, drawing core leadership and electoral support
principally from particular castes and other social groups. Leaders successfully worked
with the available social cleavages to bring the Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Janata
Dal, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (S), and others to power in key states. In some states
small parties based on caste support in sub-regions grew in prominence and became
relevant actors in politics. Some of these parties, while retaining the support of the people
of a caste as its core, have been able to grow beyond either by successfully appealing for
support from other castes and communities or building alliances with other parties. The
journey of the Bahujan Samaj Party from bahujan samaj to sarvajan samaj is an
example. One positive effect of the rise of the caste-based parties has been to empower
the hitherto disadvantaged sections of the society, undermine the caste hierarchies and
concomitant relations of domination, and foreground the notion of social justice. But
where the support bases are ossified on the basis of caste, tribe and religion, they have led
to the erection of walls of separation between different social groups. Thus the story of
caste and identity based parties and politics is a complex one, containing both positive
and negative aspects.

As the opposition parties in the late 1960s began to threaten the entrenched position of
the Congress party, it resorted to a populist agenda. Indira Gandhi split the Congress on
the ostensible plank of steering the country on a socialist path. Among other policy
initiatives, banks were nationalized to provide credit access to the poor and land ceilings
were imposed to redistribute surplus land to the landless. She won the 1971 election on
the slogan of banishing poverty from India. As people increasingly understood the
importance and implications of their vote, all parties began to outbid each other in their
search for voter support. Promises of collective and individual welfare benefits in the
form of subsidized rice, house sites and housing, free or subsidized electricity, bank loans
on easy terms, etc. became common. Welfare populism was an invention of the Indian
parties to cope with democracy under the conditions of poverty, social backwardness and
low economic growth amidst rising aspirations of the people.

Indian parties are weakly institutionalized, as is evident from the frequent splits and
mergers and the formation of new ones at regular intervals. Furthermore, voters tend to
shift from one party to the other, as can be seen in the high rates of electoral volatility.
Consequently, politicians have increasingly turned to monetary incentives to supplement

5
distributions from government programmes to maximize electoral support. Election
campaigns and vote-gathering have become increasingly expensive, compelling political
leaders to collect large donations for the party. To secure needed funds, political leaders
have resorted to the extraction of ‘rent’ by way of making decisions that unduly favour
business persons. Carolyn Elliott shows how the effort to gain funds both benefitted from
and stimulated the centralization of party organizations in Andhra Pradesh, leading to a
system she terms ‘high clientelism’. Manor examines how chief ministers have used
money in both legitimate and illicit ways to build or even purchase support from political
notables and coalition partners. However, Manor observes that Indian parties are moving
beyond clientelism to what he calls ‘post-clientelist’ initiatives as the political leaders
realize the inadequacy of populism and clientelism to ensure re-election. Elliott
documents a turn to programmatic politics in Andhra through ‘saturation’ schemes that
provide benefits to all who are legally eligible, obviating any need for connections. She
raises, however, the question of whether these are sustainable, given their dependence on
the electoral calculations of chief ministers.

Leaders and groups who break away from a parent party often proclaim policy
differences as reasons for leaving the party or forming a new party. But it is difficult to
disentangle such factors from motivations arising from power calculations and
personality clashes. Most parties have become centered on one leader who exercises
absolute control over the party. Only candidates who are trusted by the supreme leader
can stand as candidates in elections. Leadership succession is often confined to the family
members of supreme leaders, who see parties as personal fiefs to be bequeathed to their
children. The rise of unbridled political corruption, concentration of power in a single
leader, family control over parties, and the succession of sons or daughters to power have
mutually reinforcing relationships, one contributing to the other. Political power at all
levels has come to be seen as a source of amassing wealth for the political leaders and
their coteries. This is one of the reasons for the fierce competition for securing party
offices and party tickets in elections to the representative bodies. To secure party
nomination, aspiring candidates are willing to pay huge sums, their followers come to
fisticuffs in party meetings, and those who appear losing the race threaten with acts of
self-immolation, hold dharnas in front of leaders’ houses, and vandalize party offices.
The language of everyday politics has become aggressive, harsh and vituperative.
Leaders both inside the legislatures and outside abuse their rivals as if they would like to
finish off the other.

Political corruption, family politics, a lack of internal democracy and concentration of

power in parties and government are certainly not peculiar to Indian politics. But what
distinguishes India is that such tendencies are nearly universal and integral to most
parties. Democratic and stable parties based on clear policies with leadership that is not
corrupt and see themselves as accountable are the exception. Leaders who break away
from parent parties due to a lack of internal democracy and autocratic styles of the party
supremo, or who form new parties with the objective of fostering democratic culture soon
after they come to power, turn into autocratic leaders with little democracy inside their
parties. Those who denounce dynastic rule and found new parties have sought to
perpetuate political power in their families once they ascend to power. Leaders who while

6
in opposition level charges of horrendous political corruption, scandals and amassing
wealth through foul means against ruling party leaders turn out to be equally corrupt, if
not more, once they settle down in power. This does not augur well for a developing
democracy, leading to negative attitudes toward politics and parties. How and why this
has happened, how far these deplorable features are linked to social structural factors and
the prevailing political culture, whether these are endemic to Indian politics or features of
a passing phase require systematic and empirical studies. Prakash Sarangi’s article in this
collection makes an initial foray in this direction. Sarangi characterizes the
transformation of Indian politics and political leadership in the latest phase as ‘politics as
business.’

That in turn raises the urgent need for political reform. What is required is not to enact
more and more laws, but to strengthen the existing ones and ensure their enforcement.
The Election Commission of India (EC), which is constitutionally entrusted with the task
of conducting general elections, is not in a position to curb election campaign
expenditures that are many times in excess of the stipulated levels. Parties today are so
porous that elected representatives move freely from one party to another with great ease,
despite the constitutional prohibition against legislators elected on one party ticket
defecting to another. As Manjari Katju argues in this collection, due to the increase in the
number of parties, the EC needs to play a more effective role in regulating party
organization and internal structures, patterns of inter-party competition and the conduct
of election campaigns. However, political parties, whether they be in power or in
opposition, have a significant impact on the EC’s capacity to play such a role in the
Indian political system. Parties may not give the EC the space to play these roles unless
enough pressure is built from below, from the people and from civil society.

In the decades after independence fears were expressed that India may not long survive as
a democracy given its high levels of poverty, illiteracy and diversity. In the 1970s and
1980s political scientists and observers expressed apprehension about the viability of
democratically elected governments: they saw a huge gap between the demands made on
the system by people who expect the government to take care of their welfare needs, and
the capacity of the system to meet the groundswell of these demands and aspirations. In
this view, the rise of expectations among the people and the populist policies of the
parties made India ungovernable. With the introduction of liberalization reforms in the
early 1990s the theme of governance occupied a prominent place in the political
discourse, as well as academic research with an emphasis on the interlinkages between
democracy, governance and political parties.

Of the multiple meanings of democracy we see two as most illuminating. In a minimalist

sense democracy is a political arrangement to choose governments through periodic
elections. Generally we call this liberal democracy. It involves rule-based government
that administers and regulates relations between individuals according to law. At another
level, democracy can be understood as an institutional arrangement that promises and
promotes freedom, equality, justice and dignity of life. This has to happen through civic
participation in public affairs on a continuous basis. It should ensure not only security for
the individual, rule of law (treating everyone equal before the law) and rule-based

7
government. It should also provide for the well-being of citizens, including education and
basic needs, so that citizens can participate in public affairs in a meaningful way and lead
a life worthy of a citizen. This is a definition espoused by social democrats. When we say
that democracy is a political arrangement to choose governments, in the contemporary
world this is tantamount to choosing a ruling party or ruling alliance among the parties
and alliances that compete for power. Since governments are formed by parties it is
incumbent on parties to provide rule of law, and strive for the well-being of all citizens.
Thus, parties are the agencies through which the objective of a democratically elected
government, namely governance, is realized. It is crucial, therefore, that parties deliver
governance with a view to promoting democracy and civic well-being.

Governance in its wider meaning is not merely about regulating markets, but also about
enabling people to lead a life of dignity and satisfaction where they can perform their
duties and work in an efficient and satisfactory manner; where deprivation and exclusion
are mitigated; where trust in and legitimacy of governments are enhanced; and where
leaders combine on a programmatic basis rather than to push their own interests or that of
their cronies. Governance and democracy are not possible if leaders take a partisan view
of the issues that confront society and the public, or if they treat their continuation in
power as an end in itself or indulge in efforts to promote their own interests, such as
amassing wealth at the expense of public well-being.

There would not seem to be any necessary connection between democratization and
decline in rule-based governance. Indeed, many studies in India have found that less
privileged groups are more engaged with politics, and are more dependent on rule-based
governance than elites with personal connections. Post-clientelist initiatives to
democratize service provision through the law and public policy instead of partisan
politics support law-based governance. Governments that distort public policy to serve
the needs of clientelist elites and disperse resources as patronage are rightfully accused of
governing poorly. A challenge for India’s party system is to institutionalize policymaking
processes that are less governed by clientelist perspectives, i.e. to move beyond the realm
of electoral strategy and into that of expected modes of governance.

This survey of Indian political parties contains lessons for the study of Indian politics, but
also for the study of democratic politics more generally. India is the world’s largest
democracy, and Indians constitute about half of the people who live in what Freedom
House defines as ‘free’ societies. This collection reveals how ‘actually existing
democracy’ is practiced, which may give advocates of democracy reasons to despair. The
contributors illustrate how growing political participation has been accompanied by a
decline in intra-party democracy, and how identities and ideologies have sometimes
dissuaded extremist parties from gravitating towards the centre of the political spectrum.
But it is also true that India regularly holds elections, losers leave positions of power with
the promise that they can try again in the next election, and more leaders from
underprivileged groups have risen to power. It is understandable that observers of Indian
politics may be disappointed with what they see, but their disappointment points out the
great unrealized potential of democracy in India. This collection sheds light on the slow

8
but steady progress that Indian political parties have made toward realizing that potential
of crafting democracy in India.

The articles in this special issue were first presented in the International Conference on
‘Governance, Democracy and Political Parties’ (1–3 December 2012) held at University
of Hyderabad as part of collaborative research effort between Deakin University
(Australia) and the University of Hyderabad. The conference was funded by Deakin
University and the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Revised versions of the
conference papers were presented at a subsequent seminar held in November 2013. Hans
Löfgren, Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin
University, was the driving force behind these events. He had a great fascination for
Indian culture, its diversity, its people and its politics with all its contradictions,
confusion and messiness. Hans appreciated its positive aspects and was amused by its
colourful side. Unfortunately, he passed away unexpectedly on 13 July 2014. We
dedicate this collection in fond memory of Hans Löfgren.