A Study on the Political Value of Rallies

INTRODUCTION

Politics is the way that people living in groups make decisions. Politics is about making agreements between people so that they can live together in groups such as tribes, cities, or countries. In most countries, people have formed political parties to put forward their ideas. There is usually some disagreement between people within a party, but they work together because they feel that they agree on enough things, and they will have more power if they join together. They agree to take the same position on many issues, and agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders. An election is usually a competition between different parties. India have a multi-party system in which various parties take part in electoral system and forming the government on the basis of majority; these political parties time to time evolve political mechanism differently at different point of time. As these days, alliance governance is the main postulates of Indian political system. Politics involves making common decisions for a group of people. It is the activity by which differing interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and survival of the whole community. The study focus on understanding the knowledge of the political science discipline; its principal theoretical frameworks and applications, conceptual vocabulary, and methods of inquiry; its major subfields of study; and its interrelationships with the other political fields. The most common form of government is the multi-party system. In such a system, there are three or more parties which have the capacity to gain control of the government separately or in a coalition. In case, no party achieves a clear majority of the legislative seats, then several parties join forces and form a coalition government. Countries like India follow a multi-party system. Some people are of the view that a multi-party system often leads to political instability in a country. India is the largest democracy in the world. India has the biggest number of people with franchise rights and the largest number of political parties, which take part in election campaign. In the 2014 national elections, almost 814 million people voted and taking part in democratic system. Politics is the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group. It refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance, and organized control over a human community, particularly a state. In modern nation-states, people have formed political parties to represent their ideas. They agree to take the same position on many issues and agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders. Politics is a multifaceted word. It has a set of fairly specific meanings that are descriptive and nonjudgmental (such as "the art or science of government" and "political principles"), but often does carry a connotation of dishonest malpractice. A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising force, including

governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level. It is very often said that politics is about power.

Rallies are political spectacles, the thronging crowd responding to the leader. The frisson of elections only adds to that extraordinary contact between the public and the politician. Great meetings are no longer the barometers of public opinion they once used to be, say political pundits. Political messaging is now more subterranean, dependent on mass and social media and the organizational tentacles of a party. In fact, the heave-ho required to set up a successful rally – carting crowds to the venue, arranging star speakers – is often seen as a burden. And yet the rally‘s popularity as a tool for propaganda persists – and in this frantic political season, it has only flourished. Gujarat CM Narendra Modi – in a series of rallies, from Delhi to Patna to venues in the South and West – has brought back the show-of-strength aspect of political gatherings. The best example of this is the Left party rallies. They are past masters at organizing crowds, but it rarely translates into electoral victory except in their old pockets of strength,‖ says Badri Narayan of the Gobind Ballabh Pant Social Sciences Institute in Allahabad. ―And yet rallies remain popular, simply because they demonstrate the strength of an organisation, its ability to get things done, to gather crowds, to put up a good show,‖ adding, ―Politics as spectacle is an important part of a message of dominance, present even in evolved democracies like the US and UK, he says. Modi, who emphasises social media and reaching out to the young through technology, has been surprisingly gung-ho about the old-fashioned rally. ―As soon as he was appointed chairman of the campaign committee, it was decided that a series of rallies would be organised across the country for him to show himself as the candidate for prime minister,‖ says a top BJP leader. According to KN Govindacharya, former ideologue of the party and campaign chief of elections past, rallies add to the ―hype‖ around the candidate. In our country, there are several political parties that stand for the election. The presence of the political party is actually a healthy situation for the nation. It gives the people a choice to make a more evolved cannot exist without the presence of a political party. Every candidate in the election would be an independent candidate. Any individual candidate does not have the efficiency to promise any major policy change to the people. In such a scenario, no one will be responsible for how the country is run. In the long run, only a representative democracy can survive. Political parties are the agencies that gather different views on various issues and present them to the government. India, i.e. Bharat, as stated in her constitution is a ‗Union of States‗ and follows a democratic parliamentary system of governance. The well developed and fully evolved form of democracy that we witness today in India has taken a long span of time to be matured. It has seen both ups and downs, but has managed to survive successfully. That is why the study important to analyze the pillars of democracy and how these pillars functions. There are many factors which worked for the success of India‗s democracy. Now most of the information that is available to people and researchers in regard to social problems is to be found in form of reports. The reports published by Government are considered as more dependable. On the other hand some people think that the reports that are published by certain individuals and agencies are more dependable and reliable. Journals, Books and magazines are important public documents including a wide variety of information which can be usefully utilized in collection of data in this study. Most of these information are very much reliable. Newspapers publish news, discussion on contemporary issues, reports of meetings and conferences, essays and articles on living controversies and the letters of the readers to the editors; all this has been used in this research paper.

Indian politics is caste ridden politics. Caste is a very old and prominent basis of social stratification in India wherein some castes were given superior positions with social and economic privileges that were denied to the lower caste of people. In the Vedic period, Varna system became the basis of social stratification. According to Varna system there were four Varnas like Brahmin, Kshatrya, Baishya and Sudra and each were allocated specific functions. However, with the passage of time the caste system came to the in heritage status, which is determined by birth and consequently it has become a divisive factor in Indian society. In the post-independence period also these remain same although different measures have been taken to reduce the thus given a distinct character to the Indian politics. Every political party give an alert and panoramic view to the caste consideration in candidate selection, appointment of minister. However not only these but also it influence the bureaucracy also. More recently the reservation policy has given a new impetus to the role of caste in Indian politics. Religious faith is very old and strong in India which is apparent due to partition in 1947 on the religious line. Even before independence, the British had very intelligently used the policy of divide and rule for a long time and continued in power. However, in the post-independence period it introduced the element of communalism in politics. Although the framers of the constitution provided a secular polity for India, yet the real secularism is still not visible at the societal level. Even in the post-independence period, many political parties formed like ( Akali Dal in Punjab for Sikhs) on the religious line. The recently formed AIUDF (All India United Democratic Front) in Assam also uses religion to get the support of religious minorities and get elected the candidates from only minority dominated areas. These, along with some other elements arose the feeling of communalism. India is a vast multi religious, multi-cultural country with unique diversity. Thus, cultural and geographical factors have imparted distinctions to each region. Regional diversity in India has assumed political significant in the form of regionalism. Regionalism simply means the feeling of the people of a region in which they display more closeness and faithfulness towards regional identities and interests in comparison to their national interests and national identity. If it taken beyond a limit, then regional feeling comes direct conflict with the feeling of nationalism, leading to the emergence of the process of disintegration and secessionism. The North/South divide, the demand for greater autonomy, the son of the soil thesis, the interstate dispute over languages, river, water and territory, the secessionist movements like Khalistan and in North East India the issue of Naga movement, Assam movement etc. are some of the examples of regional uprising in the post-independence India. These uprising emerge due to the uneven distribution of resources among the regions and various groups, which ultimately leads to the feeling of relative deprivation among the disadvantageous groups or regions and partly due to the growing political awareness among them. Bodo movement in Assam also can be cited as example of relative deprivation. Agitation, rallies, violent demonstrations, padyatras, Gherao, Hartals etc. have been in the use as political tools to advance political interests and to seek popular support. According to Rajni Kothari, these practices and activities are called „Direct Action‟. Direct Actions refer to all those political actions which are non- constitutional. India is replete with the Bandh by different political parties, Ayodhya Mandir Andolan of 1992, Delhi Rally 1993, launched by the Bharatya Janata Party etc. These examples underscore the importance and influence of these democratic practices in Indian politics.

Although, the government of India is committed to protect the unity and integrity of the country by following the ideals and goals of the constitution yet the unhealthy practices of democracy and the above cited problems stand on the way to national integration. Not only these but the government of India has taken certain measures like the establishment of National Integration Council (1962), organizing national integration conferences and conferences of Chief Ministers of States from time to time etc. to achieve these objectives. But, the official and procedural efforts are not adequate and many times failed. As many of the problems of national integration are political problems and has cultural and psychological dimensions. The government should ensure that the operation of political practices and system are just and equal to all groups, regions and communities. The political leadership and political parties should also rise above narrow interests to face the challenges of national unity and integrity.

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Assistant Professor, Govt. College, Karauli