Political Process in India

About the Author Dr. Ashutosh Kumar has been teaching Political Science at Satyawati College (Evening), University of Delhi, since last 21 years. He obtained his Ph.D degree from Vikram University, Ujjain, and has also earned PGDJ from IIMC, New Delhi. His area of research is Indian Political System and Theory. Along with several research articles published in reputed journals, Dr. Kumar has several monographs to his credit. He has participated and presented papers at several national and international seminars/conferences. Dr. Kumar was awarded Major Research Project by ICSSR and Innovation Projects by University of Delhi. He has also contributed to the working of the college in many ways.

Preface Mahatma Gandhi stated about the place of ethics in politics. He told that politics without ethics and principles were not desirable. The principles are the moral principles. According to his philosophy political, life should be governed by truth, morality and self-purification. Gandhiji's politics were bound up with truth and non-violence. He also prescribed that country should concern with the morals of her leaders. Devotion to truth was drawn by him to half corruption. He had no intention to indulge the religious matter. He interpreted that religious matter is a death-trap because it kills the soul. He also expressed that "for me there is no politics without religion, not the religion of the superstitions or the blind religion that hates and fights, but the universal religion of toleration ".

Indian politics is a very confusing topic which is very difficult to understand. Even the Indians are very much confused as the country is very large and consists of more than a billion people with varying ideas. Till 1948 India was ruled by British and we got freedom by waging a nonviolent struggle. This by itself is very confusing. By modern standards where everybody wages war for their rights or for their presumed grievances India decided to go for nonviolent method. The results are there for everybody to see. Modeled after the British Westminster system, politics of India take place in a framework of a federal parliamentary multi-party representative democratic republic. In other ways we adopted the system of our colonial masters. India is the world's largest democracy. though a very big country with a population of more than a billion (speaking more than 14 different languages) it has established systems with independent bodies who maintain the checks and balances. Compare this with many other smaller countries that also got independence from the colonial masters at the same time- like Ceylon, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.

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