Why India has so many parties - and what to do about them

At last count, there were 1,400-and-odd registered with the Election Commission. Is this too many or too little?

The answer, according to Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Varma from the Travers Department of Political Science in the University of California at Berkeley, is the Congress party’s high command  culture.

Or so they say in The Indian Express . According to the authors, “the increasing interference of the Central government (especially the Congress high command) in state politics in the 1980s, after Indira Gandhi returned to power, is an overlooked factor in explaining the explosion in number of parties in the 1990s.”

Under Indira Gandhi, Congress leaders with an independent political base were shuffled often like a pack of cards, leading many to develop career anxieties. They conclude: “If the decision about who gets access to positions within a party or holds executive office on behalf of the party is arbitrary, and is frequently made by one leader, then others within the party are unsure of their career paths. Therefore, a politician would likely desert his parent party and join another party to enhance his career prospects. However, lateral entry to a similar position in another party is not always easy. Therefore, powerful politicians find it easier to form a new party to contest elections.”

To be sure, the Congress’ contribution to the atomisation of political parties is no doubt immense, but the authors seem to have overlooked a simpler reason for the proliferation of parties in India.

Consider the numbers: 1,400 political parties for a population of 1210 million means one party for around 8-9 lakh people. The figure would double to 1.5-2 million per party—about the size of a Lok Sabha constituency—if one were to eliminate half the 1,400 parties that exist either only on paper or just to receive tax breaks or launder money (political parties pay no income tax).

Let’s also not forget that every major Indian state is as diverse as the European Union. While language may be the same in a state, the mix of ethnicities, castes, tribes and religious affiliations can make it impossible for a handful of political parties to represent all shares of political opinion in any major state.

For example, in Tamil Nadu, apart from four or five major parties, there are at least 50 smaller parties that represent specific communities. None of them have anything to do with the high command culture. However, the authors may be partly right in that politicians who find their growth stifled in one party tend to launch another.

It happens often enough in business. When your growth is curbed in one, you may set up your own company.

On the other hand, consider the sheer number of parties even in Europe – which has already been “Balkanised”.

In Belgium, a country of 11 million, there are at least 25 political parties, major and minor. Germany, with 82 million, has just a bit more people than Andhra Pradesh, but it has six main parties in the Bundestag, a handful more in the states, and over 25 minor parties espousing various causes. Andhra Pradesh has about 35 parties – almost the same as Germany, including the national parties such as Congress, BJP and Communists.

The UK has 17 major parties in parliament, and scores of minor parties at the local and regional levels.

More than just the Congress’ high command culture, it would seem that our extreme diversity and fractious nature is the root cause for political fragmentation.

The bigger question is: should we do something about reducing the number? This writer’s answer would be no. It’s not the number of parties, but the tyranny of getting elected with 30 percent of the vote, that is the problem. That leaves 70 percent of the population unrepresented, as in the last UP election.

What we need is either proportional representation, with minor parties polling below a certain percentage of votes not getting any seats (as in Germany). Or we should have a system of eliminating contestants from the previous rounds so that the final vote is only between two people or two parties who get 50 percent of the vote (as in the French presidential election).

More parties isn’t the problem.