1. Lack of Homogeneity of Indian Population
Indian population is divided into many religion, ethnicity, castes, groups and ideologies. Which kept them alway divided from one another India has world's largest Hindu population, while it also has world's second largest Muslim population. India is also the place of worth various religious groups like Buddhism, Jainism etc. All these constituted with various subdivisions like hundreds of castes in Hindus, Sia and sunni in Muslims and so on which leads to further more complexity.
Various tribes across India also has no similarity or association with other tribes like tribes of MP are way different than the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.
Indian Political parties exploit these groups according to their suitability to gain political mileage.
2. Large Number of Parties in India
According Election Commission of India their are 2598 registered parties in India out f which 8 are National Parties and 52 are state Parties while rest of 2538 parties are not recognised and these are limited to one state or even a region of a state.
The large number of regional parties lead to formation of unstable coalition governments. both at state as well as central government. Which always remain in fear of losing the support. Which prohibits governments to take tough decision which are vital for the growth of the nation.
large number of parties especially regional parties tends to develop regionalism in the country which hampers the Nationalistic view point and hampers the national unity.
3. Narrow Focus on Vote Bank Politics
One of the major reason for having large number of parties in India is very narrow focus of Vote Bank politics on the basis region, caste, religion and ethnicity.
Many parties are formed primarily focusing on particular group of community like DMK and AIADMK (Dravidian/Tamil Identity), Telugu Desham Party (Telugu Identity), BJD (focuses on Odia culture) etc.
4. Nepotism in Indian Politics
Since 1980s Indian politics became a family business or dynastic in nature. Indian National Congress, which was earlier considered as a good liberal party earlier having very good leaders who shaped the polity of India as well as the whole world, now it is controlled by one family (Gandhi-Nehru family).
After the Jayprakash Narayan Movement, many new leaders became popular one of them is Lalu Prasad Yadav, whose family controls the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD).
There are many more examples also like Samajwadi Party (Mulayam Singh Yadav and his family), TDP (Rao family) etc.
5. Lack of Democracy in Political Parties
Nepotism in Indian Politics and one person dominance in parties led to de-democractization of Indian political parties.
Most of the Indian Political parties lack the political will to enforce internal democracy in parties because they are either controlled by a family or a group of people who dominates all the major decisions of the party.
These families and groups never wish to surrender the control over the party.
6. Criminalisation of India Political Parties
According to the latest report of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), about 43% of Members of the Parliament(MPs), elected in 17th Loksabha are facing criminal charges, out of which 25% are facing heinous criminal charges like murder, rape and attempt to murder.
29 Out of 52 Indian National Congress(INC) MPs and 116 out of 303 Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) MPs are facing criminal charges.
Parties give tickets to these criminals because they possess control over certain sections of the society, which acts as a Vote bank for these parties. Hence parties never try to avoid such persons or even never talk on this issue.
7. Lack of Political Ideology in Indian Political Parties
Most of the political parties in India do not follow any ideology or tends to follow general principles that are liberal in nature Many parties like Indian Congress, Samajwadi Party, JDU, RJD, are seen practising no clear cut ideology or same ideologies.
Only BJP and CPI are somewhat ideological. However while making coalition these parties also, sometimes forget their ideology.
Ideological voidness in Indian politics is mainly due to large number of parties and greed for the power or chair of ministry.
8. Left wing-Right Wing Politics
Although political structure in India is somewhat Liberal Socialist or Gandhian Socialist(not like socialism prevailed in USSR or China) but very strong centres of Left and Right wing also exists.
Right wing power try to enforce capitalist nature of Economy while Left Wingers try to establish socialistic nature of economic planning.
This tussle led to formation of Naxalism in India. Which became one of the main threat to India's internal security.
After the formation of BJP government in the Centre in 2014 which is somewhat rightist in approach , a new era of tussle between right and left wing started and still in continuation over ground as well as it became more brutal on social media platforms.
The influence of this tussle is grown as much as that media is also divided between these two groups.
9. Tussle between Central and State Governments
Tussle between central and state governments mainly arise when both governments are of different parties.
Tussle between centre and states are mainly for power, finances and difference in ideology or parties viewpoint on certain issues or decisions. As we saw in the case of Citizenship Amendment Act (2019), in which Kerala government filled a PIL against the Act in supreme Court. Which attracted tussle between Central and State Government.
Central government uses its powers under Article 356, 355 and through Governors (appointed by president on the recommendation of the Cabinet). This kind of politics was started by Indira Gandhi during and after emergency period. However this trend is now somewhat decreased but now new kind of trick is used to destabilize state governments. Most disturbing trend in this process whichis that Central Government sometimes seen using premier Government Agencies like CBI, ED and Income Tax.
Way Forward
To reduce or eradicate these trends in Indian politics, multidimensional approaches are needed:-
- Promote common brotherhood among citizens of the country which is also the part of Fundamental Duties under Article 51A.
- Voters should be inculcated with the art of choosing right leaders who will be good for whole society not for only a particular religion, community, caste or region.
- Citizens should avoid following leaders blindly.
- Although political parties are not eager to avoid criminals or Bahubalis while giving tickets but voters can chose not to vote such people.
- Central Government should respect the mandate of people before removing or destabilizing the state governments.