Sometimes with too little confidence and sometimes with too much, the Indian political party presents a tainted mirror to the demonic will.
Women voters at a polling station in outer Delhi, January 1952 (Getty Images); Voting underway in Ghaziabad, UP during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections (Photo: Chandradeep Kumar)
Democracy has flourished in India amidst the competition between the two models. Formally, it is a multi-party democracy: the power to administer the union, as well as the states that make up it, is obtained through a first-past-the-post system of elections. But an inherent propensity for unipolarity/dippolarity – with national parties forming its origins as well as marking its genetic code.
This was visible from the first general election of 1952, which was won by the Congress. The party’s dominance continued till 1967. Its internal strife split into new parties – the independent in the 1960s, the public in the 1970s. These often overlap or argue with politics writ from the periphery rather than the centre. Regional parties carried a wave of identity and culture in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Assam. Social factions created another analog in caste-based parties such as the SP, RJD and BSP.
If scattered parties like TMC, NCP, TRS, YSRCP—coming in stagnant birth rates since the 1990s—weakened the Congress in the states, the Center didn’t hold back against the BJP’s election march. Kesar re-arranged electoral politics around Prime Minister Narendra Modi, using money, muscle power, technology, prophecy and cult. In a sense, the unitary model is reborn in it, as the perennial battle between the center and the periphery.
