(a) "The Indian party system is shaped by a complex interaction of the country's federal structure, electoral system and social…

(a) Federalism, electoral system and social cleavages in the party system

Federalism gives identity a territorial base. Linguistic reorganisation (Andhra 1953, the States Reorganisation Act 1956, Bombay's split in 1960) made language and region axes of mobilisation, and because states control education, public order, agriculture and local administration, regional parties can offer concrete patronage and recognition, giving the DMK in Tamil Nadu, TMC in West Bengal and BJD in Odisha. The FPTP system reinforces this. Duverger's law operates at the constituency and state level, producing two-cornered contests within states but a multi-party system nationally; Chhibber and Kollman show that party aggregation tracks political and fiscal centralisation. Single-member seats reward local caste, community and regional consolidation, forcing national parties to build broad coalitions or ally with regional parties. Social cleavages explain the sequence of systems: Rajni Kothari's "Congress system" (1952–67); the rise of intermediate and backward castes after 1967 and Mandal, which Yogendra Yadav calls the "second democratic upsurge", producing the fragmented coalition era of 1989–2014; the BJP majorities of 2014 and 2019; and in 2024 the BJP's fall to 240 seats and reliance on NDA allies such as the TDP and JD(U). The interaction is a feedback loop: federalism lets regional parties capture state governments, which then bargain at the Centre for resources and portfolios, making coalition politics the norm in the 1990s and 2000s.

(b) Shifting bases of demands for new states

Yes, the basis has shifted from language and identity towards development and governance. Early demands were linguistic-cultural: Andhra (1953, after Potti Sriramulu's fast unto death), the States Reorganisation Commission (Fazl Ali, 1955), which accepted language as a major but not the sole criterion, and the 1960 split of Bombay. Language and religion combined in the 1966 division of Punjab and Haryana, while ethnic and tribal identity produced the north-eastern states: Nagaland (1963), Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura (1972), and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh (1987). Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh (2000) mixed identity with hill and tribal neglect and resource exploitation; the Jharkhand Party was founded on Adivasi identity in 1949 but succeeded only when recast as a demand for development and governance. Telangana (2 June 2014) rested on claims of unfair sharing of water, jobs and funds, and later demands, such as Vidarbha and Gorkhaland, rest on sub-regional development gaps. Demands for special-category status by Andhra Pradesh and Bihar show claims moving towards central assistance. The 2019 reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories shows that boundaries can also be redrawn from the Centre for security reasons. State-making has thus become a channel for negotiating development, not just identity.

(c) Growth and modest social development

Growth since 1991 has been concentrated in capital- and skill-intensive services and construction, producing too few good jobs ("jobless growth"), while investment in human capital stayed low: public health spending remains around 2 per cent of GDP. Drèze and Sen (An Uncertain Glory, 2013) argue that India pursued growth without the "support-led" public provisioning that East Asia and Kerala used to convert growth into capabilities. The 73rd and 74th Amendments moved health and education towards local bodies, but fiscal devolution and state capacity stayed uneven. MGNREGA (now succeeded by the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025), the Right to Education Act and Ayushman Bharat expanded access, and NITI Aayog estimates that about 24.8 crore people left multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23, yet underfunding, implementation gaps and elite capture limit the impact. Informal employment dominates; gender inequality depresses female labour participation and nutrition (NFHS-5: 35.5 per cent of under-five children stunted); and spatial disparities persist, with the BIMARU states lagging in HDI, health and education. Kerala and Tamil Nadu show that public investment in health, education and land reform yields strong outcomes even without the fastest growth, while UP and Bihar show that comparable growth coexists with weak indicators when state capacity and social spending are low.