Centralisation of Power in the India
Centralisation of Power: Indian Political System The need for a strong centre is generally considered to be a necessity regardless of what kind of an organization it is and what it is into. Nowhere is this need felt more strongly than in our political system particularly in our political parties.
It seems more apt to call India a subcontinent rather than a country. Enough and more has been written and said about how it is a melting pot of various and diverse cultures and how some states rival some countries at least in terms of geographical area. India has been a miracle to the extent that we have managed to unite so many races together under a common flag and hold together for sixty long turbulent years. This has not been an easy journey and secessionist tendencies have reared its ugly head at several points of time prominent examples being Khalistan and, as rumours have it, a demand for a separate Tamil nation.
It is not a coincidence that such movements arose at times when the Central Government was vulnerable and/or have played a role in further weakening it. These movements take advantage of differences in culture/religion to state their case thereby creating divides out of differences. Nations have been created on the basis of religion. We need to look no further than our own history for such examples.
Whatever one’s opinion may be on these matters, its generally a consensus that reasons for divisions are not hard to come by in the multiplicity of cultures in which we live. Keeping this in mind, let us examine an institution which is a pillar of any well functioning democracy: its political parties. In a multicultural democracy like India, the way its parties function will provide a clue as to how the country at large is run. Let’s take a look at the two major parties: the Indian National Congress on the one hand and The Bharatiya Janata Party on the other. The former is generally considered to be dynastic with a strong centre at
It seems more apt to call India a subcontinent rather than a country. Enough and more has been written and said about how it is a melting pot of various and diverse cultures and how some states rival some countries at least in terms of geographical area. India has been a miracle to the extent that we have managed to unite so many races together under a common flag and hold together for sixty long turbulent years. This has not been an easy journey and secessionist tendencies have reared its ugly head at several points of time prominent examples being Khalistan and, as rumours have it, a demand for a separate Tamil nation.
It is not a coincidence that such movements arose at times when the Central Government was vulnerable and/or have played a role in further weakening it. These movements take advantage of differences in culture/religion to state their case thereby creating divides out of differences. Nations have been created on the basis of religion. We need to look no further than our own history for such examples.
Whatever one’s opinion may be on these matters, its generally a consensus that reasons for divisions are not hard to come by in the multiplicity of cultures in which we live. Keeping this in mind, let us examine an institution which is a pillar of any well functioning democracy: its political parties. In a multicultural democracy like India, the way its parties function will provide a clue as to how the country at large is run. Let’s take a look at the two major parties: the Indian National Congress on the one hand and The Bharatiya Janata Party on the other. The former is generally considered to be dynastic with a strong centre at