2 Parties and the Party System James Manor olitical systems in which diverse parties compete freely for mass electoral support are increasingly hard to find in the less developed nations, even in those that experienced British rule — for a long time thought to yield durable systems of liberal, repre~ sentative government. But India, after nearly four decades of self-government and eight general elections, and despite hair~ raising traumas and persisting threats to open, competitive politics, still qualifies. Nevertheless, in recent years, decay within parties and increasingly destructive conflict among parties have so eroded the strength of the open political system that its survival is in question. There is, consequently, an urgent need for rebuilding, both within individual parties and in relations among them. Since his election victory in the Jast week of 1984, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has begun, somewhat hesitantly, the process of rebuilding within the formal institutions of state. He has also, at least for the time being, restored a modicum of civility to relations between his ruling Congress-I party and the opposition, and this has, in turn, led to an improvement in relations between the central government in New Delhi and opposition-controlled govern- ments at the state level. Rajiv Gandhi has also indicated, through scorching criticisms, that he is well aware of the wretched con- dition of his own party.! But he may also have missed his oppor- tunity to rebuild it. If that is indeed true, then he could eventually experience the kind of vulnerability that caused him and his games of India, Delhi, 29 December 1985, and Ties, London, 30 DecemberThe Institutions 93 . mother before him to seek all-out confrontation with opposition parties. It could even lead civilian elites to abandon faith in parties and in open, competitive politics. This chapter secks to delineate the changes that have occurred within India’s parties, especially the Congress party, and within the party system since Independence, and to eaplain how forces within the sphere of party competition have contributed to those changes. At first glance, it may seem that few dramatic changes have actually occurred within and among India’s parties. It may appear that the victory of the Congress party in the 1984 general election closely resembles all but one of those that have come before — the aberration being 1977 — and that one need only dust off and update the classic studies of the party system that Rajni Kothari and W.H. Morris-Jones produced some years ago.” To adopt that view, however, is to overlook a number of basic changes in Indian politics over the last two decades that have substantially altered conditions within parties, relations among parties, and, partly because parties have provided the main links between state and society, state-society relations. Some of these changes were dis- guised by the result of the 1984 election, but they remain realities nonetheless. To emphasize the changes that have taken place, this chapter is divided into four sections that deal with the three main phases in the evolution of India’s parties and party systems, the periods from 1947 ta 1960, from 1967 to 1977, from 1977 to 1984, and the year following the election in the last week of 1984, It is not yet clear whether this last period should be seen as a fourth distinct phase in the process, but enough has changed since the election “to justify a separare discussion. 2 Rajni Kothari, ‘The Congress “System” in India’, ¢lsian Survey, December _1964, pp. 1161-73, much of which was foreshadowed in his ‘Form and Substance in Indian Politics’, Economic Weekly, April-May 1961, pp. 846-63; Wyndraeth H, Morris-Jones, ‘Parliament and Dominant Party: The Indian perience’, and ‘Dominance and Dissent: Their Interrelations in the Indian Party System’, in MorrisJones, Polstucs Mamily Indian (Madras: Orient Long- “man, 1978), pp. 196-232. Both Kothari and Morris-Jones provided helpful suggestions during the preparation of this chapter. I am also grateful to Stanley A. Kochanek for many useful comments on the anual draft.94 State and Politics in India From 1947 to 1967 To understand India’s parties and party system from Independence in 1947 to 1967, just after Indira Gandhi first became Prime Minister and the year of the fourth general election, we can do no better than to turn to the accounts that Kothari and Morris—Jones provided. Their views are sufficiently similar, though they are developed independently, to be considered together here. They described a ‘dominant party system’, that is a multiparty system, in which free competition among parties occurred but in which the Indian National Congress enjoyed a dominant position both in terms of the number of seats that it held in Parliament in New Delhi and the state legislative assemblies, and in terms of its immense organizational strength outside the legislacures. It is extremely important that we recognize that Congress was dominant in both spheres. Indeed, it was its dominance at the organizational level that was more important, for on that rested its legislative superiority. The might, the reach, and the subtlety of its organization also enabled it to dominate the actions of bureaucrats who were charged with the implementation of policies and laws at regional and, especially, at subregional levels. In this first period, India had a party system characterized by ‘dominance coexisting with competition but without a trace of alternation’? because opposition parties had little hope of prevent- ing the Congress from obtaining sizeable majorities in the legis- latures despite the ruling party’s failure, on most occasions, to gain a majority of valid votes cast. Nesther, by and large, did opposition parties share power in coalitions with Congress at the state level. So here was a ‘competitive party system . . . in which the compet- ing parts play rather dissimilar roles’. The ruling Congress party was ‘a party of consensus’ and the opposition parties were ‘parties a pressure’.* That is to say, the opposition partics played a role at was quite distinctive, . . . Instead of providing an alternative to the Con- gress party, they function by influencing sections within the Congress. ‘They oppose by making Congressmen oppose. Groups within the ruling party assume the role of opposition parties, often quite openly, 3 Morris-Jones, ‘Dominance and Dissent’, p. 217. 4 Kothari, ‘The Congress “System” ’, p. 1162.