Rise of regional parties in India

If we look at the history of the rise of regional parties in India, it would be apparent that their rise has been a direct result of the decline of democracy in the Congress. While the Congress up to the late sixties had many and more strong regional leaders, Indira Gandhi's ascent saw a decline and then a disappearance of all Congress leaders worth anything.

A gradual disconnect between the Congress and the regions resulted in the gradual appearance of strong regional leaders whose only reason to exist was to make the voice of the region heard in the corridors of power in Delhi.

The regional leaders usually started their careers with violence as they soon realized that just speaking wont make a difference to either Delhi or to Indira.

Violence created fear, damaged public property, brought in the media specially the Delhi centric English newspapers thereby making it possible for each distant region to make its voices heard in Delhi.

Communists were amongst the first to tap into the disgruntled sentiment in Bengal and Kerala. South states followed next and soon the movement spread to the Hindi heartland.

It's a no brainer then that the Congress which only lived on the good image of the pre Independence era and the work done by Nehru and his team, found little time to ensure speedy and grassroots development at the rural, semi rural or urban centres.

Congress leaders from the 70s onwards were busy setting their finances right, to bother about either the rich or the poor citizens of India.

With most of India being illiterate, communication across the country not being easy and people generally being poor, it was a cake walk for the Congress.

Rahul Gandhi, despite living with the Kalavati's of India has still not understood this problem. He still revels in the fact that he is likely to be the new leader of the Congress, a Congress that is hardly like the Congress of Nehru.

Even today, however, it is not late, for either the Congress or the BJP, to undertake inner party reforms and inculcate a sense of democracy within the parties.

If both, the Congress and the BJP as the two predominant national parties, start holding genuine, honest and regular elections internally, across all levels of their parties through their registered party members, right from the taluka and village level, they will throw up quite a few pleasant surprises and natural leaders at the grassroots level. This should be somewhat on the pattern of the elections that happen at all levels within the Democrat and Republican parties in the US. While families can all run for elections and try their hand at power they must come through proper elections. Even when sycophants talk of decisions being taken by the High Command, it should still be mandatory for parties to hold elections, voluntarily and willingly for the good of their own parties.

These leaders will then be the eyes, ears, hands and brains at the local level for both these parties and their connection with the citizens at the local level will be far more direct and deep enough for them to be able to push the general voters to come out and vote.

Democracy is not about the Indian parliament alone. It is about letting the voice of the people go right from the Andamans and the Anantnags to Delhi. More than that it means that people from Andamans and Anantnag needn't even wait for their voice to reach Delhi. They should be able to get their work done at the local level with only very specific issues of national and international level being raised in Delhi.

Unless the INC and the BJP bring in inner party democracy, their hopes and desires of having single party governance in Delhi will all go in vain.

Little do they realize that the regional parties are but a reflection of a lack of democracy within their parties.

While the INC has been used to governance, it is quite surprising indeed that the BJP, not ever having been associated with the Congress or its ideology has evolved into much the same thing that the Congress used to be.

We need these two parties to be somewhat on the lines of either the Dmocracts and the Republicans or the Conservatives and Labour.

We also need inner party democracy on the same lines as the above mentioned parties.

Unless they dont work on their own systems, policies and ideologies, there is nothing to distinguish between them as well as them from the multitude of regional parties. And if there is nothing to distinguish then there is no point, from the voter's point of view, to go out and vote.

If it means that this would result in a decline of democracy in India and will impact the concept of India in the long run, well, let me break the news, aren't we already there?