The Congress 'System' in India

In the study of party systems, attention has so far been given to two opposite phenomena, the two party or multi-party on the hand and the one party system on the other. Until quite recently, discussion in this field has been dominated by a dichotomous (or trichotomous) division on these lines, the principal criterion employed being the availability of choice between alternatives. The two-party provides such a choice, and so does the multi-party though in a more complicated manner;1 the party does not provide this choice. That, at any rate, is the rationalization behind the widely prevalent typology of party systems. To be sure, there is of late an attempt to look more closely at the precise functioning of the various party systems, especially in some of the new nations of Africa. There are also attempts at a behavioural of the American and British party systems.2 These studies are giving rise to new ways of looking at party phenomena and have made scholars aware of the shortcomings of the present typology. While such a discussion is going on, it might be useful to look at the Indian experience with political parties, which is of the most successful party systems in operation and yet is a that cuts across the usual stereotypes and also calls into question the very criterion of political performance usually employed in the analysis of party systems. That it is the function of politics to offer choice between alternative sets of policies and personnel may indeed be a gross oversimplification of political phenomena. Politics is not always reducible to who gets what, when and how. We do not, however, intend to go into these more fundamental questions in this paper. In what