Where's the Party?: Towards a Constitutional Biography of Political Parties in India

Abstract

Although the original text of the Indian Constitution did not mention political parties, parties are one of the most crucial institutions for the actual functioning of our constitutional structures. I go back to the founding to inquire how the framers understood the relationship between party dynamics and constitutional design. The founding debates aptly demonstrate a two-way relationship between parties and constitutional law. These debates not only help us move towards a realist account of how our constitution works, but also demonstrate various modes and functions of constitutionalization of political parties. Constitutionalization of parties may not only restrain the distortion of division of State power, but also improve the health of party competition. Moving beyond founding, I will discuss the causes of the anti-defection amendment (the only provision in the Constitution that mentions ‘political party’) and the way it has fundamentally transformed the constitutional characterization of our democracy – from the old candidate-based representative democracy to a party-based one. This constitutional transformation causes an inconsistency in the Indian law of democracy: while the anti-defection jurisprudence recognizes parties as the fundamental unit of representation, general election law continues with the old conception of candidates as the primary representative unit – a point crucial to debates on a wide array of issues ranging from political finance to party liability.