A SHORT GUIDE TO THE
INDIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
India - with a population of around a billion and an electorate of
over 700 million - is the world's largest democracy and, for all its faults and
flaws, this democratic system stands in marked contrast to the democratic
failures of Pakistan and Bangladesh which were part of India until 1947.
Unlike the American political system and the British
political system which essentially have existed in their current
form for centuries, the Indian political system is a much more recent construct
dating from India's independence from Britain in 1947.
The current constitution came into force on 26 November 1950 and
advocates the trinity of justice, liberty and equality for all citizens. The
Constitution of India is the longest written constitution of any sovereign
country in the world, containing 444 articles, 12 schedules and 97 amendments,
with 117,369 words in its English language version.
In stark contrast with the current constitution of Japan which has
remained unchanged , the constitution of India has been one of the most
amended national documents in the world with more than 80 changes. Many of
these amendments have resulted from a long-running dispute involving the
Parliament and the Supreme Court over the rights of parliamentary sovereignty
as they clash with those of judicial review of laws and constitutional
amendments.
India's lower house, the Lok Sabha, is modelled on the British
House of Commons, but its federal system of government borrows from the experience
of the United States, Canada and Australia.
The head of state in India is the President. This is normally a
ceremonial role, originally modelled on the British monarch to "advise,
encourage and warn" the elected government on constitutional matters. The
President can return a Parliamentary Bill once for reconsideration and, in
times of crisis such as a hung Parliament, the role is pivotal. The President
can declare a state of emergency which enables the Lok Sabha to extend its life
beyond the normal five-year term.
As members of an electoral college, around 4,500 members of the
national parliament and state legislators are eligible to vote in the election
of the President. The Indian Presidency has recently attracted special attention
because for the first time a woman now occupies the role: Pratibha Patil who
was formerly governor of the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.
There is also the post of Vice-President who is elected by the
members of an electoral college consisting of both houses of parliament. The
Vice-President chairs the the upper house called the Rajya Sabh.
The head of the government is the Prime Minister who is appointed
by the President on the nomination of the majority party in the lower house or
Lok Sabha. Currently the Prime Minister is Manmohan Singh of the ruling United
Progressive Alliance.
Ministers are then appointed by the President on the
recommendation of the Prime Minister and these ministers collectively comprise
the Council of Ministers.
The lower house in the Indian political system is the Lok Sabha or
House of the People. As set out in the Constitution, the maximum size of the
Lok Sabha is 552 members, made up of up to 530 members representing people from
the states of India, up to 20 members representing people from the Union
Territories, and two members to represent the Anglo-Indian community if it does
not have adequate representation in the house according to the President.
Currently the size of the house is 545 – made up of 530 elected
from the states, 13 elected from the territories, and two nominated from the
Anglo-Indian community. By far the largest state representation is that of
Uttar Pradesh with 80 members. At the other end of the scale, three states have
only one representative each. There are certain constituencies where only
candidates from scheduled casts and scheduled tribes are allowed to stand.
Each member – except the two nominated ones – represents a
geographical single-member constituency as in the British model for the House
of Commons.
Each Lok Sabha is formed for a five year term, after which it is
automatically dissolved, unless extended by a Proclamation of Emergency which
may extend the term in one year increments. This has happened on three
occasions: 1962-1968, 1971 and 1975-1977.
Elections are a huge and complex affair which nationwide are held
in five seperate rounds taking a total of 28 days.
Link: Lok Sabha
The upper house in the Indian political system is the Rajya Sabha
or Council of States. As set out in the Constitution, the Rajya Sabhahas has up
to 250 members. 12 of these members are chosen by the President for their
expertise in specific fields of art, literature, science, and social services.
These members are known as nominated members. The remainder of the house –
currently comprising 238 members - is elected indirectly by the state and
territorial legislatures in proportion to the unit's population. Again, of
course, the largest state representation is that of Uttar Pradesh with 31
members. The method of election in the local legislatures is the single
transferable vote.
Terms of office are for six years, with one third of the members
facing re-election every two years. The Rajya Sabha meets in continuous session
and, unlike the Lok Sabha, it is not subject to dissolution.
Link: Rajya Sabha
The two houses share legislative powers, except in the area of
supply (money) where the Lok Sabha has overriding powers. In the case of
conflicting legislation, a joint sitting of the two houses is held. If there is
a conflict which cannot be resolved even by the joint committee of the two
houses, it is solved in the joint session of the Parliament, where the will of
the Lok Sabha almost always prevails, since the Lok Sabha is more than twice as
large as the Rajya Sabha.
In India, political parties are either a National Party of a State
Party. To be considered a National Party, a political party has to be
recognised in four or more states and to be either the ruling party or in the
opposition in those states.
Ever since its formation in 1885, the Indian National Congress
(INC) – and its successor - has been the dominant political party in India. For
its first six decades, its focus was on campaigning for Indian independence
from Britain. Since independence in 1947, it has sought to be the governing
party of the nation with repeated success.
As a result, for most of its democratic history, the Lok Sabha has
been dominated by the Indian Congress Party which has been in power for a great
deal of the time. However, since the Congress Party lost power in 1989, no
single party has been able to secure an overal majority in the Lok Sabha,
making coalitions inevitable. Also, unlike Japan where the Liberal Democrat
Party has been in power almost continuously , Congress has had (usually
short) periods out of power, between 1977-1980, 1989-1991 and 1996-2004.
The original Congress Party espoused moderate socialism and a
planned, mixed economy. However, its spin-off and successor, Congress (I) – 'I'
in honour of Indira Gandhi – now supports deregulation, privatisation and
foreign investment.
While the Congress Party has historically dominated Indian
politics, the leadership of the Congress Party in turn has been dominated by
one family: Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, served for 17
years; his daughter Indira Gandhi later became Prime Minister; his grandson
Rajiv Gandhi was also Prime Minister; currently the widow of Rajiv Gandhi, the
Italian-born Sonia Gandhi holds the position as Congress President although she
has refused to accept the post of Prime Minister; and her son Rahul Gandhi is a
Member of Parliament, while her daughter Priyanka Gandhi is an active political
campaigner.
The Indian Congress Party is the leading party in the Centre-Left
political coalition called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) which embraces
a total of 16 parties.
The other major, but more recently-established, political party in
India is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Created in 1980, it represents
itself as a champion of the socio-religious cultural values of the country's
Hindu majority and advocates conservative social policies and strong national
defence. The BJP, in alliance with several other parties, led the government
between 1998-2004.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is the leading party in the Right-wing
political coalition called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). When it was
originally founded in 1998, there were 13 parties in the coalition but
currently there are eight.
A Third Front is a grouping centred on the Communists.
The Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority in civil,
criminal and constitutional cases. The court consists of up to 26 judges,
including the Chief Justice of India, all of whom are appointed by the
President on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. They serve until the age
of 65.
India is a huge country both demographically and geographically
and consequently it operates a federal system of government. Below the national
level, there are 28 States and seven Union Territories.
The largest of India's states is Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the north
of the country. With over 175 million inhabitants, UP is the most populous
state in India and is also the most populous country subdivision in the world.
On its own, if it was an independent nation, this state would be the world's
sixth biggest country. Only China, India itself, the United States, Indonesia
and Brazil have a higher population.
In Indian general elections, it fills more than one-seventh of the
seats in India's Parliament and, such is the state's caste-based and sometimes
violent politics that, currently a quarter of UP's MPs face criminal charges.
Over the years, India has evolved from a highly centralised state
dominated by one political party to an increasingly fragmented nation, more and
more influenced by regional parties and more and more governed locally by
unstable multi-party alliances. In the General Election of 2009, Congress and
the BJP faced each other in only seven of the 28 States; elsewhere, one of the
two national parties faced a regional party.
Politics in India is much rougher and much more corrupt that in
the democracies of Europe and North America. Political assassination is not
uncommon: the revered Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
in 1984, and the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 were all killed by
assassins. Communal, caste and regional tensions continue to haunt Indian
politics, sometimes threatening its long-standing democratic and secular ethos.
Recent years have seen the emergence of so-called RTI activists -
tens of thousands of citizens, often poor, sometimes almost illiterate,
frequently highly motivated - who use the Right To Information legislation of
2005 to promote transparency and attack corruption in public institutions. In
the first five years of the legislation, over a million RTI requests were filed
and so threatening to authority have some of the RTI activists become that a
number of have been murdered.
More recently than the RTI movement, there has been a related - if
rather different in caste and class terms - movement around the demand for an
anti-corruption agency (called Lokpal). This movement has been led by the
hunger-striker Anna Hazare and draws most of its support from the growing
Indian middle-class which feels alienated from politics since the votes are to
be found in poor, rural communities while the power is to be found in rich,
urban elites.
In spite of all its problems, India remains a vibrant and
functioning democracy that is a beacon to democrats in many surrounding states.
Political system of india
POLITICAL SYSTEM OF INDIA
Indian Democratic Political System (*I.D.P.S. - I Do Public
Service*)
-A THESIS STUDY BY COMMON MAN
“While talking about India the first most
thing which comes to everyone’s mind is India’s politics, India’s so called
Democratic political system ,its politicians and rest comes second”.
In this post I (The
Author) going to talk about ‘Indian Political System’.
Before we start few
questions to the reader:
· Are you Indian? If yes, then are you proud of
it? And if not, which is the best thing you like in India?
· What do think about Indian democratic political
system?
o Is it right?.......no! Wrong?............no!
Moderate?…………no! Something needed to change in
it?................................?????? Still confused!!!! Let’s try and find
out after this post ends. O.K.? So let’s
start…………………..
The most important thing
which an Indian should feel proud is its Democratic political system, which
India prepared itself and is considered best in all the countries in the world
(at least by me) , don’t you think so?
If “yes. Off course”,
then you might not be an Indian or you don’t know your nation well. Confused??? You should be! Because if you are
among the one who are not included in the Indian politics anyhow, then you
should not think it is the best system in the world.
And if you are among the
one who are anyhow included in the Indian politics, then you would not be
telling it so publically.
A person across the UNIVERESE @EARTH@WORLD@NATIONS@INDIA@INDIANS@ME (the common person of
India) lying in any of these frames will consider the Indian Democratic
Political System (*I.D.P.S. - I Do Public Service*) to be the best among all
the nations. -------------------------No????................Then
tell which the best is? Name it? -----Can you really?????
And the answer is
‘NO!!’ .
There exists no nation
having a good*(Aspects Comparison) (better then) Democratic (Political or social)
system then India. And that’s truth.
But one thing a common
Indian always thinks is, “Then why India as a nation is not best in the world?”
and the answer is because of its political system (I.D.P.S). YES!!!!!, Buddy
you read it right. It’s the main reason India being so back in the list when it
comes in comparing the nations on the whole.
‘But India is having the
best system to run the nation.?? ‘This is the question which will arise in your
mind after this. So what if India is having the best system, the powers running
this system are not in favor of Indians. But the question arises is that who gave them
these powers. And again you know the answer. It’s you, YES you,. The Common Man
Of India (The C.M. of India). And that’s the best thing in Indian constitution
the government running the nation is made by the common Indians. But still
there’s no solution to the poverty in India, corruption in India, and India
stands nowhere in the race of other countries of the world.
Now the question arises
is that then where is the fault, it’s done by whom, who are culprits , who
suffers the most of it??
Answer to all these
question is , the person making the government, the person letting it happen,
and the person gives the power of control to those dirty politicians, the
person giving or not giving its vote----------, let’s come to main point it’s
you, the common man of India , The Commanding Man Of India(T.C.M.O.I), and they
themselves are the sufferers, culprits they are everything you can think of .
Common man does it,
suffers, again does the same mistake, again suffers, and the process goes on.
Everyone wants to change
the system, everyone talk, think, discuss, but the result never comes and do
you know why ??? because no one does anything. Everyone has its own reasons to
escape. No the common man when does something either he is cheated or fooled.
But the outcome is 0.00 .
Now let’s come an end of
this topic, not practically but theoretically, then where’s the solution of
changing the system? And the answer is in system. Who gon’na change this? And
the answer is you and me. A Indian needs to left out his personal matter
and now think of the nation. It’s better to start now before it’s too too late
.
Now come to the question
I asked to in beginning (????). I hope you got the answer you were looking for
.!.................................NO???? Still not ???? Still confused???? Really ? are
you considered about your nation then only I would tell you ?? O.K. the final thing is there is no Answer to
this, there’s no ANSWER
. But there’s a solution
for sure . And the solution is :-
Indian Democratic Political System (*I.D.P.S. - I Do Public
Service*)
(*The facts/words marked
are my* personal view, and India allows me to express my view even publically)
(#No view published in
this article is to offence any political party, individual, property, nation,
or anyone across the universe)
(#* The content posted
in this article is copyright holding with the Indian public and me, so use of
any part of this article without the permission of mentioned above is illegal
and punishable)
SIGNING OFF
An Indian Common Man
09/10/2012
JAI HIND! JAI BHARAT!
A good Start
I need a good start and i Think that i am going good and soon will come up with the perfetion of my blog making it publicily ap.
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