In Praise of Political Parties

Part II

Subversion of Political Parties and Democratic Values.

John Samuel


While most of the countries in the Western Europe and North America have a longer history and institutional basis of political parties, that is not the case in most of other countries. The case of India seems to be an exception, where there is a vibrant network of political party system. This is partly because of the fact that many of the political parties evolved over a period of hundred years, particularly in the context of the Freedom Struggle from the second half the 19th century. While South Africa and parts of Latin America have an emerging political party system, in most of the world political parties are often very fragile, ephemeral or a farce of the ruling elite.

One of the reasons for a very unstable democratic process in most of the parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America is the very character and nature of fragile political party system. The fragile political party system is a result of multiple factors that shaped the history, society and politics of these countries after the Second World War. Most of the countries that got freedom from the yoke of the Western European Powers failed to develop their own polity or the political process rooted in the respective context, history and society of the respective countries.

The very process of decolonizing also involved sowing the seeds of conflicts based on ethnicity, religion and identity in most of the countries. Unlike the case of India, there were not many mass struggles or wider political mobilization for freedom from the Colonial Powers. The struggle against colonialisation and imperialism was in many ways the beginning of the process of democratization and political process in most of countries in the world. The process of decolonizing also ensured the emergence of faulty and fragile democratic systems and process – more often initiated by an educated elite minority in conjunction with the erstwhile colonial powers.

There has been hardly any social, cultural and political process of nation-state formation in many of the earlier colonies- which the imperial powers almost treated as territories for extraction of material, agricultural or mineral resources. As a result, the notion of a modern nation-state was often superimposed on territories and areas where power primarily operated through traditional forms of structures and systems like tribalism or feudalism. In most of the cases, a liberal–democratic system was super imposed either on feudalism, tribalism and theocratic formations. In the absence of social transformation or transitions, democracy was often a veneer to sustain the feudal and tribal power-networks. This most of the political parties reflected the feudal or tribal charatecteristics of the dominant social forces in country.


In most of the decolonized countries, the process of governance was lead by a minority of the western educated elite class, nurtured by the erstwhile rulers or their institution and heavily depended on an aid system that gave them money and legitimacy. The leaders of many of these former colonies derived their primary legitimacy from the position they held and the support they got from the erstwhile colonial masters or their allies. This meant that least of investment in developing and nurturing a vibrant political party system as it would have become a thorn in the flush of their power. So, most of the leaders in the erstwhile colonies used political parties as a necessary evil to ensure some veneer of socio-political legitimacy in their own countries and in the world.

The very process of nation-state and nationality process in Africa, Asia and many other countries are negotiated by the colonial powers in the first half of the twentieth century. The process of decolonization also involved sowing seeds of conflicts in many of the erstwhile colonies and making them dependent on the formal imperial powers for ideas, aid, weapons and legitimacy. A fragmented polity, perpetual conflict, and dependent economic system were sure recipe for poverty, oppression and subversion. The result is everywhere to see. Even today the arbitrators of the so-called democracy in the south are very much the institutions and the leaders in the North.



Another important reason for the fragile political party system in the Global South is the very impact of the cold war. In the name of sustaining and promoting democracy, the United States and its allies in many ways killed the very democratic process. This was done by eliminating a whole generation of dynamic and committed leadership of the left leaning opposition parties and the communist parties. During the cold war period, both the Western and Eastern Block fought for the soul of many countries, by funding political parties, political leaders as well making the opposition leaders or parties impotent through a well planned process of annihilation and co-option.


This very process of intervention by the external forces undermined the institutional framework and political party system in most of the global south. In fact, the Cold war politics of aid, subversive education and ideological dependencies by the Western and Eastern Blocks of Power- based on Euro-centric ideas- made the very foundation of the political party process weak and fragile. As a result most of the countries in the South depended on the policy framework of either Soviet Union or the West for shaping the very process of governance and economy. This dependency syndrome in terms of ideas, knowledge and legitimacy had far reaching implication in terms of weakening the polity, policy process and political system of each of the countries in the global south.



This is where India is very different from most of the other decolonized countries. In the Indian context, the very long history freedom struggle and the primary role of the Indian National Congress and other political process helped a rather deep socialization of political parties. So in many ways the vibrant spectrum of political parties, based on identity, ideology and commonly shared platform for freedom struggle paved the way for decolonization and social reforms, rather than the other way around. In case of India, the Gandhian political praxis and social ethics – distinct from the imported knowledge-policy frame work from Europe- influenced almost all the political party process in India. Other bold experiments and theorization by scholar-activists like Ambedkar, Nehru and range of social reformers helped inject a sort of Indian ethos and civilization content to the political party process in India... The vibrant multiparty system, with multiple ideological and identity base helped to sustain, stabilize and strengthen a unique brand of Indian Democratic system. . In fact, apart from the Congress party, the left parties and the parties on the right too contributed to make India a viable multiparty democracy. The fact that most of the Indian politicians still wear Khadi or prefer Indian dress code (as distinct from many other countries in South-East Asia, Africa or elsewhere) is a bit of reflection of the “congress system” and Gandhian legacy.

However, in many of the other South Asian countries, the absence of a vibrant multi-party system weakened the governance as well as democracy. During the cold war period, most of the left political forces in other parts of South Asia was subverted or eradicated by the nexus of ruling elite and western political and economic forces. The eradication of left political forces from Pakistan and Bangladesh actually had long term political impact in weakening the foundations of democratic process in both countries. The deep rooted feudal values( family based politics is an indication) and identity politics based on cast, religion or ethnicity and sub-nationalities shaped the very character, hierarchy of political party systems South Asia, including India.

Hence the secular values, or cosmopolitan political ethos and democratic values are actually skin deep in almost all the political party system in India and the rest of South Asia.