Recent Developments in Indian Politics

This final chapter takes a broad view of politics after the late 1980s. NCERT admits this period is complex, controversial and recent, so it is hard to judge. It poses four questions rather than answering them. What does coalition politics mean for democracy? What is Mandalisation, and how will it change who gets represented? What is the legacy of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement? What does a new policy consensus do to the choices before voters? NCERT's aim is to give you the information and tools to answer these yourself.

• Builds on: Chapter 2 (the ‘Congress system’), Chapter 5 (the 1967 challenge and its restoration), Chapter 6 (Janata Party and the 1977 break) and Chapter 7 (Punjab, the 1984 assassination and anti-Sikh violence).
• Pairs with: Indian Constitution at Work Chapter 3 (Election and Representation) and Chapter 4 (Executive); Political Theory Chapter 8 (Secularism); Indian Economic Development Chapter 3 (Liberalisation, 1991).
• UPSC: Prelims on the Mandal Commission (1984), the 8th Lok Sabha (1990), PMs who were not CMs (1994), the United Front's parties (1998), commissions of inquiry (2002, 2005), the OBC quota Bill (2006) and Rao's Ayodhya book (2007). Mains on the party system (2016), communalism (2017, 2018, 2023), Dalit assertion (2015), the NCBC (2022) and national versus regional parties (2022).

• 1989: the Congress falls from 415 seats (1984) to 197. This ends the ‘Congress system’ and opens an era of coalitions (no single-party majority until 2014).
• Governments: National Front (1989, BJP and Left outside support), United Front (1996–98, Congress and Left support), NDA under Vajpayee (1998–2004), UPA under Manmohan Singh (2004–14), NDA under Modi (2014–).
• Mandal: Commission (1978–79; report 1980) recommends 27%. It is implemented for central jobs in August 1990 and upheld in Indra Sawhney (November 1992).
• Dalit and OBC politics: BAMCEF (1978) leads to the BSP (Kanshi Ram, 1984), which breaks through in UP in 1989–91. OBC-based parties also rise.
• Religion and politics: BJP (1980), Hindutva, the Shah Bano case (1985) and the 1986 Act. At Ayodhya the locks were opened (1986), the mosque was demolished (6 December 1992) and the Supreme Court gave its verdict (9 November 2019, 5–0).
• Recent elections: UPA 2004 (Congress 145) and 2009 (206). BJP majorities in 2014 (282) and 2019 (303). Beyond NCERT: in 2024 the BJP won 240 and the NDA formed the government.

Rajiv Gandhi won a huge victory in 1984 after Indira Gandhi's assassination. By the end of the decade NCERT identifies five developments with long-lasting impact:

• Defeat of the Congress in 1989: it fell from 415 seats in 1984 to 197. It came back to power after the 1991 mid-term election and has ruled longer than any other party since 1989. But 1989 ended what political scientists call the ‘Congress system’: the party lost its central place in the party system.
• The ‘Mandal issue’: in 1990 the National Front government decided to reserve central government jobs for OBCs. Violent ‘anti-Mandal’ protests followed. The dispute between supporters and opponents of OBC reservation shaped politics from then on.
• New economic policy: the structural adjustment programme, or new economic reforms. NCERT says Rajiv Gandhi began them and that they became very visible in 1991. Many movements have criticised them, but every later government has continued them.
• The Ayodhya dispute: NCERT calls this a centuries-old legal and political dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi site. It began to influence national politics. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement changed the terms of the debate on secularism and democracy, and the temple was built after the Supreme Court's decision of 9 November 2019.
• Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi (May 1991): he was killed by a Sri Lankan Tamil linked to the LTTE while campaigning in Tamil Nadu. The Congress became the single largest party in 1991 and chose P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister.

1989: the Congress was the largest party but had no majority, so it sat in opposition. The National Front (the Janata Dal plus some regional parties) formed a government. It was backed from outside by two opposite camps, the BJP and the Left Front, neither of which joined it. Decline of the Congress: its dominance had been challenged once before, in the late 1960s, when Indira Gandhi restored it. The 1990s brought another challenge, but this time no other single party took the Congress's place.

So a multi-party system began. Many parties had always contested elections. What was new was that votes and seats spread so widely that no party won a clear Lok Sabha majority from 1989 until 2014. Regional parties became essential to forming governments. In 2014 and 2019 the BJP won a majority on its own.

Alliance politics. The 1990s saw strong parties and movements of Dalits and OBCs, many of them also expressing regional assertion. They mattered in the United Front government of 1996, which, like the National Front, included the Janata Dal and regional parties. This time the Congress supported it and the BJP did not. In 1989 the Left and the BJP backed a non-Congress government to keep the Congress out. In 1996 the Left and the Congress backed one to keep the BJP out. Meanwhile the BJP grew in 1991 and 1996 and became the largest party in 1996. It was invited to form a government but could not win a majority. It came to power at the head of a coalition in 1998 and was re-elected in October 1999. Atal Bihari Vajpayee led both NDA governments, and NCERT says the one formed in 1999 completed its term.

NCERT places this in a longer trend. The Congress had itself been a ‘coalition’ of interests and social groups (Chapter 2). From the late 1960s sections left it to form their own parties, and regional parties rose after 1977. These changes weakened the Congress but did not let any one party replace it. NCERT notes that from 1989 every government had to depend on regional parties, whether as partners or as outside supporters: the National Front (1989), the United Front (1996, 1997), the BJP-led coalition (1998), the NDA (1999) and the UPA (2004, 2009). The trend changed in 2014.

Who are OBCs? OBC is an administrative category: communities other than SC and ST that suffer from educational and social backwardness, also called ‘backward castes’. Support for the Congress among many of them had declined (Chapter 6). That gave room to non-Congress parties, first visible nationally in the Janata Party government of 1977. Its constituents, such as the Bharatiya Kranti Dal and the Samyukta Socialist Party, had a strong rural base among some OBC groups. In the 1980s the Janata Dal brought together a similar combination.

The Mandal Commission (NCERT's box). Southern States had OBC reservation from the 1960s, if not earlier, but north Indian States did not. The demand was raised strongly under the Janata government (1977–79). Bihar's Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur pioneered a new OBC reservation policy there. The Centre then appointed the Second Backward Classes Commission, the second such body since Independence, chaired by B.P. Mandal. Its task was to measure educational and social backwardness, say how to identify backward classes and suggest remedies. It reported in 1980, after the Janata government had fallen.

• It said ‘backward classes’ should be understood as backward castes, since many castes other than the SCs were also treated as low in the hierarchy.
• Its survey found these castes had a very low presence in educational institutions and public employment.
• It recommended 27 per cent reservation in educational institutions and government jobs. It also made other recommendations, such as land reform.
• In August 1990 the National Front government implemented one recommendation: OBC reservation in central government jobs and its undertakings.
• Agitations and violent protests followed in many north Indian cities. The decision was challenged in the Supreme Court as the Indra Sawhney case. In November 1992 the Court upheld it.
• Parties differed over how to implement it. NCERT says OBC reservation now has the support of all major parties.

Effects. The intense national debate made OBC communities more aware of their identity and helped those who wanted to mobilise them. Many parties emerged seeking better OBC opportunities in education and jobs and raising the question of OBCs' share of power. Their argument: since OBCs are a large part of society, democracy requires adequate representation in administration and politics.

The 1980s also saw Dalits organise politically. In 1978 the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) was formed. It was no ordinary employees' union: it argued for political power for the ‘bahujan’, meaning SC, ST, OBC and minorities. From it came the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4) and then the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), led by Kanshi Ram. The BSP started small, supported mainly by Dalit voters in Punjab, Haryana and UP. In the 1989 and 1991 elections it broke through in Uttar Pradesh. NCERT says this was the first time in independent India that a party backed mainly by Dalit voters had achieved such success.

The BSP was designed around pragmatic politics. It drew confidence from the fact that the bahujans together form the majority of the population. It became a major player in UP and has been in government there more than once. Its core support is still Dalit, but it has reached out to other groups. In many parts of India, NCERT notes, Dalit politics and OBC politics developed separately and often in competition.

NCERT calls the visible rise of politics based on religious identity the other long-term development of the period, and says it set off a debate on secularism and democracy. After the Emergency the Bharatiya Jana Sangh had merged into the Janata Party (Chapter 6). When the Janata Party broke up, its former Jana Sangh members formed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980. At first the BJP adopted a broader platform, ‘Gandhian Socialism’ along with cultural nationalism, but it did poorly in 1984. After 1986 it put nationalism at the core of its ideology and pursued Hindutva for political mobilisation.

Hindutva, as popularised by V.D. Savarkar, is the idea that Indian nationhood rests on a shared culture. In NCERT's summary, an Indian should accept India as both pitrubhu (fatherland) and punyabhu (holy land). Its believers argue that a strong nation needs a united national culture and that Hindutva can provide it. Critics, including other parties and many scholars, argue that it ties citizenship to one religious tradition and leaves minorities insecure. This counter-view is not set out in the current reprint, and the Constitution itself guarantees equal citizenship regardless of religion.

Two developments around 1986 became central to the BJP's politics. The first was the Shah Bano case (1985). A 62-year-old divorced Muslim woman sought maintenance from her former husband, and the Supreme Court ruled in her favour. Orthodox Muslims saw this as interference in Muslim Personal Law. At the demand of some Muslim leaders, the government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, which nullified the judgment. Many women's organisations, many Muslim groups and most intellectuals opposed the Act. The BJP called it an unnecessary concession and ‘appeasement’ of the minority. The second development was Ayodhya (next section).

What NCERT says (2026-27 reprint). The issue is rooted in the country's socio-cultural and political history, with different perspectives held by different stakeholders. It concerned the birthplace of Shri Ram and the legal ownership of the site. NCERT traces conflicts over the site back some 500 years, to 1528, recorded in the Lucknow, Barabanki and Faizabad gazetteers. It says a three-dome structure was built at the site in 1528. NCERT adds that this structure displayed Hindu symbols and relics inside and outside, and that this linked the issue to national pride in an ancient civilisation. The structure was sealed in 1949 when court proceedings began. In 1986 the Faizabad (now Ayodhya) district court ordered it unlocked for worship. The belief behind the dispute was that the structure had been built at Ram's birthplace after a temple was demolished. A shilanyas (foundation rite) for the temple was held, but further construction stayed prohibited. NCERT describes Hindus feeling that their concerns were overlooked, while Muslims sought assurance of their possession. Tensions and legal conflicts grew, with both communities wanting a fair resolution. After the structure's demolition in 1992, some critics argued it posed a serious challenge to Indian democracy.

Resolution. NCERT stresses that conflicts in a plural democracy are normally settled by due process of law. In Ayodhya the process ran through court hearings, mediation attempts and popular movements. It ended in a 5–0 verdict of a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on 9 November 2019. The Court gave the disputed site for a temple to be built by a trust (NCERT names the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust). It directed the government to allot a suitable site for a mosque to the Sunni Central Waqf Board. NCERT's own judgements are its own: that the verdict was ‘celebrated by the society at large’ and was a ‘classic example of consensus building’. They should be quoted as NCERT's view, not stated as fact.

The 2026-27 reprint does not discuss the 2002 violence in Gujarat. Earlier editions did, in a short passage that cited the National Human Rights Commission's criticism of the State government; it was removed when NCERT rationalised the textbooks in 2022. UPSC still expects the facts for questions on communalism, so here they are, each with its source.

NCERT asks you to compare the Congress and the BJP to understand competition after 1989. Its charts show the following. The two were close rivals through the 1990s and 2000s, far from the lopsided 1984 result. Since 1989 their combined vote has usually exceeded 50 per cent, except in 1996, 2004 and 2009. The 1990s competition was largely between a BJP-led and a Congress-led coalition.

2004: the Congress also built coalitions on a large scale. The NDA was defeated and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power with Left Front support. The Congress partly revived, raising its seats for the first time since 1991, though the vote gap between the two alliances was negligible. The UPA completed its term even though the Left withdrew support in July 2008 over the Indo-US nuclear deal. 2009 (15th Lok Sabha): the Congress rose from 145 to 206 seats, and Manmohan Singh began a second term heading the UPA. In September 2013 the BJP named Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, as its prime-ministerial candidate. 2014 (16th Lok Sabha): the BJP won 282, the first single-party majority in 30 years, but still formed an NDA government with its partners. 2019: the BJP won 303. NCERT notes that coalition politics remains relevant even with a single-party majority. It also calls 2014 a ‘watershed’, which is NCERT's own judgement.

The selection above is taken from NCERT's 19-party table, out of a total of 543 seats (530 from States, 13 from Union Territories). NCERT's ‘Others’ includes several large State parties not listed separately, such as the Trinamool Congress, so do not read ‘Others’ as small parties only.

Amid severe competition, NCERT finds a broad agreement among most parties on four elements:

• New economic policies: many groups oppose them, but most parties support them as the road to prosperity and economic power.
• Political and social claims of the backward castes: all parties now support reservation for ‘backward classes’ in education and jobs, and are willing to ensure the OBCs an adequate share of power.
• The role of State-level parties: the line between national and State parties matters less. State parties share power at the Centre and have been central for some twenty years.
• Pragmatism over ideology: coalition politics shifted parties' focus from ideological difference to power-sharing. NCERT's example is that most NDA partners did not share the BJP's Hindutva but governed together for a full term.

NCERT's conclusion: India has moved from one-party dominance to more competitive politics based on an implicit agreement among the main actors. Within that consensus, people's movements put issues such as poverty, displacement, minimum wages, livelihood and social security on the agenda, while claims of justice are voiced in terms of class, caste, gender and region. The future of democracy cannot be predicted. What is certain is that democratic politics is here to stay and will keep changing through these forces.

Try each one yourself first. Q1 and Q2 are also in the self-check below.

Numbers

One-liners

• 1989 ended the ‘Congress system’, not the Congress.
• 1989–2014: no single-party majority; regional parties were kingmakers.
• Outside support: in 1989 to keep the Congress out, in 1996 to keep the BJP out.
• Mandal: commission 1978–79, report 1980, implemented 1990, upheld 1992.
• The BSP grew from BAMCEF on the idea that the bahujan are the majority.
• Shah Bano (1985) and Ayodhya (1986 onwards) made secularism the dividing line of the 1990s.
• Ayodhya was settled by law in 2019; the 1992 demolition was held illegal by the same Court.
• NCERT's consensus: reforms, OBC claims, State parties, pragmatism.

Traps to avoid

• The first BJP-led coalition began in March 1998, not May (NCERT's table is right; its text is not).
• The 1999–2004 NDA government lasted nearly, not exactly, a full term (Lok Sabha dissolved February 2004).
• The 1990 decision covered central government jobs only; OBC reservation in central higher education came in 2006.
• Indra Sawhney upheld 27% but added the creamy layer and the 50% ceiling, and struck down the 1991 economic quota.
• The Liberhan Commission probed the 1992 demolition; the Srikrishna Commission probed the Mumbai riots; the Jain Commission probed the Rajiv Gandhi assassination conspiracy.
• The 2019 verdict gave the mosque land under Article 142; the Court directed the Centre to form the temple trust.
• There was no recognised Leader of the Opposition in the 8th Lok Sabha (1984–89).
• NCERT's 1996 BJP figure is 160; ECI records 161.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Governments and parties: the Mandal Commission's subject (1984); the Leader of the Opposition in the 8th Lok Sabha (1990); PMs who were not earlier CMs, which includes V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar and Rao (1994); parties outside the 1996–97 United Front (1998).
• Inquiries and Ayodhya: match the commissions — Wadhwa, Liberhan, Srikrishna, Jain (2002); what the Liberhan Commission probed (2005); the author of ‘Ayodhya: 6 December 1992’ (2007).
• OBC reservation after Mandal: the 104th Amendment Bill on quotas in private institutions (2006). Also expect Indra Sawhney's holdings, the NCBC (Art 338B), the EWS quota, coalition dates, and the 2019 verdict and Article 142.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• Party system (GS2): the transition ‘full of contradictions and paradoxes’ (2016) and national versus regional parties (2022). Use NCERT's arc (Congress system → coalitions → single-party majority with allies), the 1989 and 1996 outside-support paradox, and NCERT's four elements of consensus. Seat figures must come from NCERT or ECI.
• Communalism (GS1): religiosity versus communalism (2017), power struggle or relative deprivation (2018), the post-liberal economy and identity (2023). Give facts first (Shah Bano, Ayodhya 1986–2019, Mumbai 1992–93, Gujarat 2002), then attribute each judgement to its source (Supreme Court, Liberhan, NHRC, SIT).
• Social justice (GS1/GS2): Dalit assertion and annihilation of caste (2015); the NCBC's change from a statutory to a constitutional body (2022). Cover Mandal, Indra Sawhney, the BSP and the creamy layer.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

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