Jana Sangh and Swatantra: a profile of the rightist parties in India

THE IMPORTANCE OF political parties in a parliamentary demo cracy need hardly be emphasized. Modern democratic govern ments cannot function effectively in the absence of political parties. They play a very important part in the functioning of democracies inasmuch as they are the means of educating public opinion on general issues and also of criticizing government policies where they are not supported by incontrovertible argu ments. The most important function of the parties is of course to provide the possibility of an alternative government to that which is in office. The study of political parties, therefore, contributes in general to the understanding of the political life of the country of which they are constituent parts.

Although political parties have attracted the attention of students of political science in the West, very few, if any, of our own serious students of the subject have been drawn to make objective studies of political parties. Even those who have endeavoured to write on Indian political parties have confined themselves to a general study in the main. No study, to the best of our knowledge, has been made about individual parties or ideologically affiliated groups of parties. In particular, no systematic attempt to study the rightist parties in India has been made here, in our country, in the past. It was with a view to filling this need in acquiring knowledge on political parties that I undertook the study.