Making of the Parliamentary Opposition in India [Hardcover]

1.???? A Quasi-Democratic Moment: The Opposition in Ideas and Action?2.???? The Formative Phase: A Parliamentary Opposition in the Making?3.???? The Resilience Phase: The Age of Resilient Opposition?4.???? The Consolidation Phase: The Political Consolidation of Opposition?5.???? The Fragmentation Phase: The Opposition in Coalition Government??6.???? Epilogue: The Unmaking of the Parliamentary Opposition?Bibliography?Appendix

This book is a detailed account of the making of parliamentary opposition in Independent India.? It?examines the working of the Opposition in four phases the Formative Phase (1952-1966), the Resilience Phase (1967-1984), the Consolidation Phase (1985-1999), and the Fragmentation Phase (1999-2014).?

This book is a detailed historical and analytical account of the making of parliamentary opposition in Independent India, based on a wide range of sources, including the memoirs of politicians and their writings in the popular press. Historically, the book examines the working of the Opposition in four phases the Formative Phase (1952-1966), the Resilience Phase (1967-1984), the Consolidation Phase (1985-1999), and the Fragmentation Phase (1999-2014); parallelly, the question of the Opposition is framed in two facets: as democracys necessity and as governance imperative. It shows how the representational assertion in Indian politics enabled the expansion of the Opposition, but by generating fragmentation and making ideologically-neutral coalitions both possible and necessary, it also contributed to its weakening as a mechanism of exacting accountability.

This book invites the reader to reimagine the idea of democracy, political system, governance from the perspective of the opposition. Why is the Opposition essential? What is the constitutional and institulc3