Coalition Government And Politics In India

Contributed articles.

This book provides an in-depth study of coalition governmentexperiments in India, with particular reference to the coalition politics at theCentre as well as in the states of Kerala and West Bengal.

With The Replacement Of The Dominant Party System In India, Minority And/Or Coalition Governments In New Delhi Have Become The Order Of The Day. The Fifteen Papers In This Book Analyse The Various Dimensions Of Coalition Government At The Centre And In Some Of The State Of The Indian Federation Against The Background Of A Theoretical Framework That Seeks To Integrate Coalitions Among Parties, Castes And Communities And Tribes, As Well As Classes At Electoral, Parliamentary, And Cabinet Levels.

This new collection examines the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the ways in which its Hindu nationalist agenda has been affected by the constraints of being a dominant member of a coalition government. Religious influence in contemporary politics offers a fertile ground for political-sociological analysis, especially in societies where religion is a very important source of collective identity. In South Asian societies religion can, and often has, provided legitimacy to both governments and those who oppose them. This book examines the emergence of the BJP and the ways in which its Hindu nationalist agenda has been affected by the constraints of being a dominant member of a coalition government. The collected authors take stock of the party's first full term in power, presiding over the diverse forces of the governing NDA coalition, and the 2004 elections. They assess the BJP's performance in relation to its stated goals, and more specifically how it has fared in a range of policy fields - centre-state relations, foreign policy, defence policies, the 'second generation' of economic reforms, initiatives to curb corruption and the fate of minorities. Explicitly linking the volume to literature on coalition politics, this book will be of great importance to students and researchers in the fields of South Asian studies and politics.

This volume looks at the evolution of coalition politics in India, both at the national and provincial levels. It investigates the processes that led to coalition governments. It explores the formation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Janata Party experiment, and the Third Front experiments. The book highlights the growing importance of regional parties in national politics and argues that the very notion of representation in terms of ‘national’ and ‘local’ is being redefined in the context of the emerging significance of coalition politics. It also examines the role of cultural synergy and political expediency in coalition politics and discusses the inevitability of coalition government in India.

Ruparelia confronts one of the most striking developments in modern Indian politics: the increasing influence of communist, regional, and lower caste-orientated socialist parties on politics since the late 1980s. In particular he traces these their attempts to construct a progressive 'third force' vis-àvis the historically dominant Indian National Congress and Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the subsequent decline of the broader Indian left as a collective political power. Ruparelia develops an original theoretical argument, deploying an innovative conceptual grammar of institutions, power, and judgment to explain the vicissitudes of the contemporary Indian left over the past two decades. Divided We Govern is a fine-grained analytic narrative to explain the vagaries of power-sharing in contemporary Indian democracy. It draws together a variety of tools and resources to create a dynamic causal account of multiparty governments and their function only partly captured by many scholarly analyses and the theories on which they rely. Ruparelia's narrative comprises information gathered from newspapers and periodicals, party manifestoes, and government documents; original statistical analyses of official electoral data and national election surveys; and the rare testimonies of senior party leaders, high-ranking government officials, and seasoned political journalists, obtained through dozens of in-depth interviews and intensive fieldwork.

This book presents a theory of behaviour in coalitions and presents an application of the theory to Indian political party coalitions.

Dr. D. Sunder Ram Is A Founder And Director Of Academy Of Grassroots Studies And Research Of India (Agrasri); Secretary- General Of Rajiv Rural Development Foundation (Rrdf); And Editor Of The Grassroots Govenance Journal (Tggj) And Grama Sabha (Gs) Magazine, Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh ). Prior To Joining The Academy Of Grassroots Studies And Research Of India, He Taught Political Science And Public Administration Disciplines At Sri Venkateswara University.....