"Caste, faction and party in Indian politics"

This book, planned in a series of two volumes, for the first time, brings together, most of Professor Brass' articles including
Some previously unpublished ones.
This is Volume One. It deals mainly with faction and party. It contain three articles that compare party system , patterns of political participation, and political stability in the Indian states from 1952 to 1974. There are also three articles on factions and the Congress organization in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and one on the disintegration of the Indian Socialist movement. The articles on V.P. trace the influence of factionalism and leadership conflict on the Congress organization from the early 196 through-the breakup of the old factional system in the 1970s to their current forms in the 1980s. They also show how Charan Singh and the BKD emerged from the Congress to challenge its dominance in the north Indian countryside. In the articles in Volume One, Professor Brass focuses on the following themes: the relationship between factional loyalty and party loyalty; the relative influence of personal ambition and ideology in Indian politics; and the effects of increased political participation on political stability. He argues that factional loyalty and personal ambition have generally taken precedence over party loyalty and ideology in Indian politics. He insists that political participation, far from representing a danger to political stability in India, is an asset. He shows that, while
factionalism and opportuism dominate Indian political behavior, there are important policy issues in dispute as well, particularly concerning the relative roles of agriculture and the peasantry in relation to industry and urban classes in Indian economic development. However, those issues are too often shrouded in politics that alternate between jobbery and demagoguery .