(a) Explain the importance of political parties in Indian democracy.

(i) Parties contest elections.

(ii) Parties put forward different policies and programmes and the voters choose from them.

(iii) Parties play a decisive role in making laws for a country.

(iv) Parties form and run governments. Parties recruit leaders, train them and then make them ministers to run the government in the way they want.

(v) Those parties that lose in the elections play the role of opposition to the parties in power, by voicing different views and criticising government for its failures or wrong policies. Opposition parties also mobilise opposition to the government.

(vi) Parties shape public opinion. They raise and highlight issues.

(vii) Parties provide people access to government machinery and welfare schemes implemented by governments.

(b) Explain the challenges faced by the political parties in India.

(i) The first challenge is lack of internal democracy within parties. All over the world there is a tendency in political parties towards the concentration of power in one or few leaders at the top. Parties do not keep membership registers, do not hold organisational meetings, and do not conduct internal elections regularly.

(ii) The second challenge that is faced by the political parties is of dynastic succession. Since most political parties do not practice open and transparent procedures for their functioning, there are very few ways for an ordinary worker to rise to the top in a party. Those who happen to be the leaders are in a position of unfair advantage to favour people close to them or even their family members.

(iii) The third challenge is about the growing role of money power in parties, especially during elections. Since parties are focussed only on winning elections, they tend to use short-cuts to win elections. They tend to nominate those candidates who have or can raise lots of money. Rich people and companies who give funds to the parties tend to have influence on the policies and decisions of the party.

(iv) The fourth challenge of the growing role of muscle power in the functioning of political parties is another issue faced by the political parties. In some cases, parties support criminals who can win elections.

(v) The fifth challenge is that very often parties do not seem to offer a meaningful choice to the voters. In order to offer meaningful choice, parties must be significantly different. In recent years, there has been a decline in the ideological differences among parties in most parts of the world. For example, the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in Britain is very little.