Class 12 Political Science Book 2 Chapter 8 Recent Developments in Indian Politics NCERT Solutions

(d) Assassination of Indira Gandhi comes first. The chapter’s opening sentence of the
section places it before everything else in the chapter: “Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister
after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. He led the Congress to a massive victory in the Lok
Sabha elections held immediately thereafter in 1984.” So it precedes the 1984 poll, and
therefore precedes every other item on this list.

(b) Formation of the Janata Dal comes second. The chapter places the party in the
1980s: “In the 1980s, the Janata Dal brought together a similar combination of political groups
with strong support among the OBCs.” And it must already exist by 1989, because the National Front
that fought that election “itself was an alliance of Janata Dal and some other regional
parties”. (It was formed in 1988, the year before that election; the chapter itself prints no
year.) So it comes after the 1984 events above and before the Mandal decision below.

(a) Implementation of the recommendation of the Mandal Commission: August 1990. “In
August 1990, the National Front government decided to implement one of the recommendations of
Mandal Commission pertaining to reservations for OBCs in jobs in the central government and its
undertakings.”

(e) The formation of NDA government: 1999. The BJP “finally came to power by leading a
coalition government from May 1998 to June 1999 and was re-elected in October 1999“, and
the chapter’s own list of the phase names “the NDA in 1999“.

(f) Formation of the UPA government: 2004. “In the elections of 2004 … a new
coalition government led by the Congress, known as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came
to power.”

(c) Supreme court Judgment on the Ram Janmabhoomi: 9 November 2019. “…finally with a
5-0 verdict of a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court on November 9, 2019, the Ayodhya
issue was resolved.”

The main issues.

1. The end of Congress dominance, and coalition politics. The defeat of 1989 marked the end
of the ‘Congress system’. The Congress fell from 415 seats in 1984 to 197, and though it
returned to power after the mid-term elections of 1991, it lost the centrality it had earlier enjoyed.
No single party replaced it, so no party secured a clear majority in any Lok Sabha election from
1989 till 2014, and the Centre has had eleven governments since, all of them coalition or
minority governments.

2. The Mandal issue and the political rise of the OBCs. The National Front government’s
decision of August 1990 to reserve central government jobs for the OBCs divided supporters and
opponents of reservation, led to violent ‘anti-Mandal’ protests, and made OBC identity a
mobilising force in politics. The decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Indira Sawhney
case in November 1992.

3. The new economic policies. The structural adjustment programme, begun by Rajiv
Gandhi and very visible from 1991, radically changed the direction the economy had pursued
since Independence. It was widely criticised by various movements and organisations, and yet
every government of the period continued it.

4. Politics based on religious identity, and the debate about secularism and democracy. The
Shah Bano case of 1985 and the government’s Act of 1986, the BJP’s turn after 1986 to
nationalism and the politics of ‘Hindutva’, and the Ayodhya issue together made this the
other long-term development of the period.

The configurations these led to.

1989, the National Front. The Congress, largest party but without a majority, sat in the
opposition. The National Front, an alliance of the Janata Dal and some other regional parties,
formed the government with outside support from two diametrically opposite groups, the BJP and the
Left Front, both of which wanted to keep the Congress out of power. Neither joined the
government.

1996, the United Front. Again the Janata Dal with several regional parties, but this time
the BJP did not support it and the Congress did, because both the Congress and the Left now
wanted to keep the BJP out of power. The chapter uses this reversal to show how unstable the
political equations were.

1998 and 1999, the BJP-led coalition and the NDA. The BJP, largest party in 1996 but unable
to secure a majority, came to power leading a coalition from May 1998 to June 1999 and was
re-elected in October 1999, with Atal Behari Vajpayee Prime Minister both times and the
second government completing a full term.

2004 and 2009, the UPA. The Congress too entered into coalitions in a big way. The
NDA was defeated and the United Progressive Alliance came to power with Left Front
support, returning in 2009 when the Congress rose from 145 to 206 seats.

2014 and 2019, the change of trend. The BJP won 282 seats on its own in 2014, the
first single-party majority in 30 years, and 303 in 2019, though it formed the NDA government
with its coalition partners even in 2014, and the chapter notes that the recognition of coalition
politics is still relevant.

This question asks for arguments on both sides and a conclusion. Give all three.

Arguments supporting the statement.

1. The chapter itself says so. The fourth element of the new consensus is “emphasis on
pragmatic considerations rather than ideological positions and political alliances without
ideological agreement“, and the chapter explains that “coalition politics has shifted the focus
of political parties from ideological differences to power sharing arrangements.”

2. The chapter’s own example. “Thus, most parties of the NDA did not agree with the
‘Hindutva’ ideology of the BJP. Yet, they came together to form a government and remained in
power for a full term.”

3. The alignments of 1989. The National Front was supported by two diametrically opposite
political groups, the BJP and the Left Front. Nothing but a shared wish to keep the Congress out
of power could put those two on the same side.

4. The re-alignment of 1996. The Left went on supporting a non-Congress government, but this
time the Congress supported it too, because both now wanted to keep the BJP out. The chapter’s
own comment on the pair of episodes: “This shows how unstable the political equations were.”

Arguments opposing the statement.

1. The competition still had two poles. The chapter describes the political competition of
the nineties as “divided between the coalition led by BJP and the coalition led by the
Congress“, which is a structure, not a free-for-all.

2. The new parties had a definite claim. The parties representing the OBCs argued that
“since OBCs constituted a large segment of Indian society, it was only democratic that the OBCs
should get adequate representation in administration and have their due share of political power.”
That is an ideological position, not a bargaining position.

3. The consensus itself is a set of commitments. Agreement on new economic policies,
acceptance of the claims of the backward castes, and acceptance of the role of State level parties are
three positions that every major party now shares. Parties are not aligning against each other
on ideology because they have converged on one, not because they have none.

Conclusion. On balance the statement is more right than wrong for the forming of
alliances: in this period parties came together for power sharing rather than for ideological
agreement. But it goes too far if it is read to mean that ideology has disappeared from Indian
politics, because the broad consensus the chapter describes is itself a shared set of
positions.

1. From the Jana Sangh to the BJP. In the aftermath of the Emergency, the Bharatiya Jana
Sangh had merged with the Janata Party. After the fall of the Janata Party and its
break-up, the supporters of the erstwhile Jana Sangh formed the Bharatiya Janata Party in
1980.

2. The first platform, and the setback of 1984. Initially the BJP adopted a broader
political platform than that of the Jana Sangh, embracing “‘Gandhian’ Socialism’ along with
cultural nationalism” as its ideology. It did not get much success in the elections held in
1984.

3. The turn after 1986. The party began to emphasise nationalism as the core of its
ideology and also pursued the politics of ‘Hindutva’ for political mobilisation. Hindutva,
popularised by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as the basis of Indian nationhood, meant that to be an
Indian one must accept India as their ‘fatherland’ (pitrubhu) as well as their holy land
(punyabhu).

4. The two developments around 1986. The Shah Bano case of 1985, in which the BJP
criticised the Congress government’s Act of 1986 as an “unnecessary concession and ‘appeasement’
of the minority community“; and the Ayodhya issue, in which the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple
Movement, becoming the central issue, “transformed the direction of the discourse on secularism and
democracy“.

5. Sharing power without holding it. In 1989 the BJP was one of the two diametrically
opposite groups that supported the National Front government from outside, without joining it.

6. Consolidation, 1991 and 1996. The BJP continued to consolidate its position in the
elections of 1991 and 1996. It emerged as the largest party in the 1996 election and was
invited to form the government, but most other parties were opposed to its policies and it
could not secure a majority in the Lok Sabha.

7. In office, 1998 and 1999. It finally came to power leading a coalition government from
May 1998 to June 1999 and was re-elected in October 1999. Atal Behari Vajpayee was
Prime Minister during both NDA governments, and the government formed in 1999 completed its full
term.

8. A majority of its own. The BJP won 282 seats on its own in the 16th Lok Sabha
elections of 2014, the first single-party majority in 30 years, and 303 seats in
2019. Even so, it chose to form the NDA government with its coalition partners in 2014, and the
chapter observes that the recognition of coalition politics remains relevant.

Yes, I agree, and the chapter supplies the reasons.

1. The chapter itself says the party stayed important. “The Congress remained an important
party and ruled the country more than any other party even in this period since 1989. But it lost
the kind of centrality it earlier enjoyed in the party system.” What declined was its centrality, not
its presence.

2. It recovered quickly from 1989. Reduced to 197 seats, “the Congress improved its
performance and came back to power soon after the mid-term elections held in 1991“, when it
emerged as the single largest party and Narsimha Rao became Prime Minister.

3. It could decide who governed even without governing. In 1996 “the United Front
government was supported by the Congress“, and the chapter’s own caption records Sitaram
Kesri withdrawing “the crutches of support” from Deve Gowda’s government. A party able to
make and unmake a government from outside is still shaping national politics.

4. It led a governing coalition again. “In the elections of 2004, the Congress party
too entered into coalitions in a big way“, the NDA was defeated, and the UPA came to
power with Left Front support. 2004 was also “the partial revival of Congress party“, whose
seats increased once again after 1991. In 2009 the party rose from 145 seats to 206, and
Dr. Manmohan Singh was sworn in as Prime Minister for a second term.

5. It remained one of the two poles of competition. The chapter asks students to compare the
electoral performances of the Congress and the BJP precisely because the two “were engaged in a tough
competition in this period”, and notes that their votes together “most of the time, add up to more
than fifty per cent“.

6. Where the decline is real, and should be admitted. The chapter’s own table shows the
Congress at 44 seats in 2014 and 52 in 2019, while the BJP won majorities of its own in
both. So the fair conclusion is that the Congress no longer dominates the party system, but has
continued to influence politics as a party of government, as a supporter of other governments, and as
one of the two poles around which alliances form.

Introduction. India’s experience since 1989 has been of a multi-party system in which
“one or two parties did not get most of the votes or seats”, and in which the Centre has had
eleven governments, all of them coalition or minority governments. The chapter’s own account
suggests that this system has had several real advantages over a two-party model.

1. It represents more of Indian society. The nineties “saw the emergence of powerful parties
and movements that represented the Dalit and backward castes“, many of which “represented
powerful regional assertion as well”. A two-party system would have given these claims no
vehicle of their own. The claim itself was a democratic one: that a group forming a large segment of
society should get adequate representation in administration and its due share of political
power.

2. It brought the States into national governance. The third element of the new consensus is
the acceptance of the role of State level parties in governance of the country. “The
distinction between State level and national level parties is fast becoming less important“,
and State level parties “have played a central role in the country’s politics of last twenty years
or so“. Any government in this phase could be formed only with the participation or support of
many regional parties.

3. It opened a path for parties of the socially excluded. The BSP began as “a small party
supported largely by Dalit voters in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh“, achieved a
breakthrough in Uttar Pradesh in 1989 and the 1991 elections and, as the chapter says, this was
“the first time in independent India that a political party supported mainly by Dalit voters had
achieved this kind of political success“. It has since expanded its support to various other
social groups.

4. Coalitions have proved they can be stable. The NDA government formed in 1999 completed
its full term, and the UPA government formed in 2004 “completed its term despite Left parties
withdrawing the support in July 2008 on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal”. Instability is not a
necessary feature of coalitions.

5. It rests on agreement, not permanent conflict. “In the midst of severe competition and
many conflicts, a consensus appears to have emerged among most parties“, covering economic
policy, the claims of the backward castes, the role of State level parties, and pragmatic power
sharing. Even after the BJP won majorities of its own in 2014 and 2019, the chapter notes that “the
recognition of coalition politics is still relevant“.

6. It keeps new demands entering politics. Even as parties act within the consensus,
“popular movements and organisations are simultaneously identifying new forms, visions and pathways
of development“. Issues of poverty, displacement, minimum wages, livelihood and social
security are put on the agenda by peoples’ movements, “reminding the state of its responsibility”,
and issues of justice and democracy are voiced “in terms of class, caste, gender and
regions“.

Conclusion. A two-party system might be simpler, but the Indian experience of the last three
decades suggests that the present party system has been more representative, has brought the
States into national decision making, and has still been able to deliver governments that last a
full term. The chapter’s closing judgement is that “democratic politics is here to stay in
India“.

The author names three, and the chapter supplies the substance of each.

1. The Congress system destroyed itself. The chapter says the 1989 elections “marked the end
of what political scientists have called the ‘Congress system’“. It also explains that the
Congress had once been “a ‘coalition’ of different interests and different social strata and
groups“, and that “especially since the late 1960s, various sections had been leaving the
Congress fold and forming separate political parties of their own“. The system broke up from the
inside.

2. Fragmentation, and a new emphasis on self-representation. The chapter records the rise of
parties built on the assertion of a particular social group: parties representing the Dalit and
backward castes, whose claim was that the OBCs, being a large segment of society, should get their
due share of representation and power; and the BSP, which grew out of BAMCEF’s demand for
political power to the ‘bahujan’. It notes that “Dalit politics and OBC politics have developed
independently and often in competition with each other“.

3. The question of the party system’s capacity to accommodate diverse interests. Since 1989
no single party could form a government alone until 2014, and all eleven governments
were coalitions or minority governments. Whether a system of many parties, each speaking mainly for
one section, can hold together a country of many sections is exactly the test the author names.

The best example from this chapter is the Mandal issue. When the National Front government
decided in August 1990 to implement the Mandal Commission’s recommendation on reservations for
OBCs in central government jobs, the decision “sparked agitations and violent protests in many
cities of north India”, and the chapter calls the resulting dispute between the supporters and
opponents of OBC reservations the ‘Mandal issue’, marked by violent ‘anti-Mandal’
protests. Two sets of interests were pushed into direct conflict on the street rather than
reconciled inside the party system.

A second example, if you need one. The Shah Bano case. The Supreme Court ruled in the
woman’s favour; orthodox Muslims saw the order as an interference in Muslim Personal Law; the
government’s Act of 1986 nullified the judgement and was then “opposed by many women’s
organisations, many Muslim groups and most of the intellectuals”, while the BJP attacked it as
‘appeasement’. Every side felt unaccommodated by the outcome.

A third, and it is the chapter’s own resolution. The Ayodhya issue ran for decades
through disputes and legal conflicts because, as the chapter puts it, “the Hindu community felt that
their concerns … were overlooked, while the Muslim community sought assurance of their possession over
the structure”, with both communities desiring a fair resolution. The chapter presents the
5-0 verdict of 9 November 2019 as the point at which the interests of the various stakeholders
were finally reconciled through the due process of law.

1. Because a diverse society cannot be governed otherwise. The chapter describes India as a
multi-religious and multi-cultural democratic society and a plural society, in which
conflicts “are bound to take place” and are “usually resolved following the due process of
law“. A party system that speaks for only one section leaves the rest with nowhere to take their
claims.

2. Because that is what makes a government possible at all. For twenty five years after
1989, “any government could be formed only with the participation or support of many regional
parties“. Aggregation is not an ideal here, it is the practical condition of holding office.

3. Because it is how new claims enter politics peacefully. The chapter’s own record is that
when the claims of the backward castes were finally accepted, the result was a settled position that
all political parties now share: support for reservation in education and employment, and a
willingness to ensure that the OBCs get an adequate share of power.

4. Because unaggregated demands do not disappear. The chapter ends by noting that
popular movements and organisations continue to place poverty, displacement, minimum wages,
livelihood and social security on the political agenda, “reminding the state of its
responsibility“, and to voice issues of justice and democracy “in terms of class, caste, gender
and regions”. If parties do not carry these demands, movements will.

5. Because it is what keeps the democracy stable. The chapter’s own conclusion is that
Indian politics has moved from one-party dominance to “a more competitive politics, but politics that
is based on a certain implicit agreement among the main political actors“. That implicit
agreement is aggregation at work, and it is why the chapter can end by saying that democratic
politics is here to stay in India.