Party system in India is neither western nor indigenous. Explain. (2014, 10 Marks)
India’s party system took its form from the West and its content from Indian society. It fits no Western typology neatly, because traditional divisions did not translate directly into parties. Nor is it a purely traditional growth. It is a hybrid with a logic of its own.
What is western
- Universal adult franchise from the first election (1951–52), Westminster parliamentary government and first-past-the-post voting.
- Ideological labels and organisational models borrowed from Europe: liberal, socialist and communist parties, the communists’ democratic centralism, and the Congress’s branch-based mass organisation.
- A regulated competitive framework under an independent Election Commission. In August 2025 it listed 6 national parties, 67 state parties and over 2,800 registered unrecognised parties, and began delisting dormant ones.
What is indigenous
- Caste and community as the base of mobilisation. Rajni Kothari (Caste in Indian Politics, 1970) showed caste being politicised even as politics was “casteised”. Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph (The Modernity of Tradition, 1967) showed caste associations working as modern interest groups.
- W. H. Morris-Jones‘s three idioms, the modern, the traditional and the saintly, which parties speak at once.
- Charisma and dynasty, where leaders eclipse organisations, and regional parties rooted in language and region, from the DMK to C. Joseph Vijay’s TVK, which became Tamil Nadu’s largest party and formed the government in May 2026.
What is neither
- The “Congress system”: Kothari’s one-party dominance combined internal factional competition with opposition parties acting as parties of pressure. No Western typology has this category.
- The Duverger exception: FPTP produced national multipartism alongside bipolar contests within states. Pradeep Chhibber and Ken Kollman trace this to decentralised authority, not to the electoral rule.
- Fission and fluidity: the CPI split in 1964, and the Congress in 1969, 1978 and 1999 (the NCP). Arend Lijphart links party numbers to issue dimensions, yet Indian parties differ little in ideology and compete on identity and leadership.
- Changing patterns: dominance gave way to coalitions (1989–2014), then to what Suhas Palshikar calls a second dominant-party system under the BJP. In 2024 the BJP fell short of a majority with 240 seats and came to depend on allies.
Conclusion
Fred W. Riggs‘s prismatic society captures the system best: a modern, imported structure resting on a traditional, plural society. Their friction produces caste-based parties competing in secular elections and dynastic parties adopting democratic party constitutions. That friction is the system’s lasting character, not a passing defect.