India is a huge, poor, fast developing, centralized and increasingly unequal, democratic country. The core argument of this article is that these and other contextual factors have an impact on the way in which social policies are formulated and implemented. The focus of the article is on two such policies on food and primary education. Based on secondary material and own fieldwork, the shaping of these two policies is discussed and some major characteristics of the two social policy processes are highlighted. This analysis brings to light the existence of two paradoxes present in social policy processes in India: one related to the fact that social policies are important for regime legitimacy but nevertheless suffer from a lack of political commitment; the other related to the fact that centralized decision-making goes together with the widespread involvement of local politicians in policy implementation. These two paradoxes, the article concludes, are the result of the wider context in which social policies are shaped and are hence not easily resolved.

Continuity and Change in India's Party System

Is There an Indian Policy Process? An Investigation into Two Social Policy Processes

Elections and National Mobilization in India

A tripartite alliance formed by the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions has been ruling the country with wide parliamentarian...

background

Stability and Governability the Benign Effects of Party Dominance in South Africa

.......................................................................................................................................................IX INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................................ 1 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT.......................................................................................................................... 1 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................................... 1 CONCEPTUALIZATION ......................................................................................................................................... 8 PARTY ALLIANCE FORMATION .......................................................................................................................... 11 PLAN OF THE THESIS......................................................................................................................................... 12 THE WEAKENING OF CONGRESS AND ELECTORAL IMPLICATIONS ............................................... 14 CONGRESS SUPPORT BASE .............................................................................................................................. 17 DIVIDED OPPOSITION AND CONGRESS ............................................................................................................... 18 THE ACCELERATION OF CONGRESS DECLINE ................................................................................................... 21 ELECTORAL IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................... 27 THE RISE OF THE BJP.................................................................................................................................... 28 HINDU NATIONALISM ....................................................................................................................................... 28 BJPS SUPPORT BASE ....................................................................................................................................... 33 THE MIDDLE CLASS SUPPORT OF THE BJP......................................................................................................... 35 BJP SUPPORT BY THE UPPER CASTES AND THE OTHER BACKWARD CLASSES (OBCS)......................................... 39 BJPS ELECTORAL PERFORMANCE SINCE ITS INCEPTION .................................................................................... 41 ELECTORAL IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................... 42 TOWARDS A MULTI-PARTY SYSTEM ........................................................................................................ 43 REGIONAL PARTIES .......................................................................................................................................... 43 MULTI-PARTY SYSTEM..................................................................................................................................... 47 2004 LOK SABHA ELECTION ............................................................................................................................. 48 ELECTORAL IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................... 49 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................................... 51 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................................... 60 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 68 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ............................................................................................................................. 81

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Indian Electoral Politics and the Rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

The conference in Poona that led to the foundation of Indian National Congress in 1885 aimed to serve as the germ of a native parliament to provide a reply to the assertion that India was still unfit for any form of representative institution. It spearheaded the Indian independence movement and post 1947 ushered in a ‘Congress system’ of one-party dominance that represented a historical consensus with few parallels in any political party system in the world. Dialectical contradiction has been a historic recurrence in the Congress as ‘personality cults’ of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi in the early years and a ‘high command culture’ later on decimated its hegemonic power in competitive party politics. The Congress declined due to a deficit of political vision, lack of forward-thinking ideas, engagement in competitive pseudo-secularism and diminishing electoral returns of dynastic (Nehru-Gandhi) politics. The institutionalization of BJP as a dominant party in 2014 coincided with the deinstitutionalization of the Congress party system. The grand old party needs to relegitimize itself by revamping its ideology, formulating a populist model of governance, creating son-of-the-soil leadership, revitalizing the party system, re-engaging with citizens, altering its politics to meritocracy and embracing new age electoral grammar.

Continuity and Change in India's Party System

Citations

Is There an Indian Policy Process? An Investigation into Two Social Policy Processes

Elections and National Mobilization in India

Stability and Governability the Benign Effects of Party Dominance in South Africa

Indian Electoral Politics and the Rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

Deinstitutionalization of the Congress ‘party system’ in Indian competitive politics

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