Is the party over?

The political party is dead! This proposition may appear a trifle exaggerated. But, as the events of the last few weeks have shown, it is fa...

The political party is dead! This proposition may appear a trifle exaggerated. But, as the events of the last few weeks have shown, it is far closer to the truth than we care to acknowledge. In many states during the recent assembly elections, independents/rebels are gathering a greater share of votes, undermining the authority of established parties. Parties are in great internal disarray. Most of them do not have established procedures for anything 8212; from selecting candidates to electing leaders. A crucial attribute of a political party is that its members accept the authority of commonly established procedures. In the absence of such procedures each decision is open to endless dissension and open rebellion, as both the Congress and the BJP have discovered. Most political parties are too dependent for their identity on a couple of leaders, and their strengths and weaknesses have come to hinge crucially on individual charisma. This is as true of the Congress as it is of the BSP. Most parties are a collection of individuals who gather around one or two central individuals, who struggle to maintain discipline. They have no corporate identity other than that relationship.

Political parties also seem to have less power to define the rules of the game. It is an open secret that parties, including national ones, often auction their seats in a bid to raise resources. Rather than constraining individuals, they seem to be constantly at their mercy. Parties then have to adapt more to the demands of accommodating to powerful individuals, than individuals have to adapt to party ideologies. Another defining feature of a political party is some broad consensus on ideology. It is now fair to say that most political parties are not parties of principle. Much has been made of the secular/ non-secular divide. While at an abstract level this divide is there, its relationship to parties is much less clear. Do the BSP or LJP suddenly become secular merely by not aligning with the BJP? Then what about the occasions when they did? Are the differences between the state units of the Congress and BJP in Gujarat or Maharashtra really that dramatic? Then how is it that the Maharashtra Congress and the Shiv Sena took almost the same stand on Savarakar? It is a sad truth that the majority of legislators in any party could easily belong to any other without compunction.

So what does a political party mean in such circumstances? Is there anything to distinguish one political party from another? Most political parties no longer conform to the classic meaning of a party. Members are no longer united by shared principles nor do they give allegiance to settled democratic procedures. Parties have become nothing other than arenas for individual bargaining. It is difficult to see how power can be coherently organised in a democracy in such circumstances. No wonder democracy has become vulnerable to the shenanigans of the best bargainers and is no longer governed by ideology, norms or procedures.