Political parties in India

THE PRESENT STUDY is a scientific political analysis of the working constitution in India. It is a protest against the fallacy that constitutional government in India is necessarily weak. In a country beset by caste, class, religious and linguistic conflicts it is remark able that stable government could be provided for more than twenty years. This study explores the conditions for modern political parties to develop in an underdeveloped country. Likewise it tries to show how the devices of integration contained in the arsenal of the Indian Constitution can strengthen the basis of political con sensus. One should not be just content to relate the existence of political difficulties and cleavages to constitutional factors.

In analysing the parties attention has been drawn on three essential aspects: how they have developed and built up their orga nisation, how they portray themselves in the context of Indian politics and how they operate in the elections at the Centre and the State levels. When these issues are discussed some other interesting vistas of study open up. For example, it would be asked whether it is correct to say that the phenomenon of party dominance reduced other political parties to the position of interest and pressure groups. The reader will find which factors have adversely affected the development of a more integrated party system.

I have also examined the working of political institutions in relation to the social and economic problems. While suggesting reme dies to stablise the political system, I have concluded that the world can well look on with excitement the experiment conducted in India in parliamentarism.