Question

Party system in india is neither western nor indigenous explain

Answer 1

The party system in India is a great blend of western and eastern type systems. In the post Independence era, until 1976, India was largely a one party system, dominated by Congress at both state ( till 1966 ) and central level. This is typically a feature of third world political system. Other parties did exist in that period, however they were mere pressure groups with weak ideology and support.

The post emergency era saw the rise of central and religional parties. Infact, political scholars even predicted that India will see a dual party system after the victory of Jan Sangh. Their predictions soon failed, after the collapse of Jan Sangh coalition. There was a shift from single party dominated system to multi party dominated system. This resulted in coalition politics.

Thus we have seen the western model of "Two party system" for a brief period and then shifted to multi party system and finally to coalition political system .In fact at Central level, it is the two party system which is existing at present. However, at the regional level, it is the regional parties that are playing the Main role. The post Rajiv Gandhi era has seen the rise of coalition politics, which diluted the two party system at Central level.

Ideologically too, except at the Central level, there aren't many ideologically based regional parties at State level. Parties based on regional interests is an Indian phenomenon, an Indian invention.

Thus Indian party system doesn't have a pure western model two party system. Nor a strict multi party system. It is a mixture of both at various levels of time and space.

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