Examining colonial and post-colonial eras: Class-discourses of national political parties in India

Indian political party-system was not democratic since its inception during the colonial days. It rather gave leverage to widening the divide between the masses and the elites and accommodated more of the capitalist intents of the British. Therefore, though the notion of classes had existed before, it conceptualised the western definition and vocabulary of class in the colonial era. While the lower class was still under-privileged with a lack of democracy, the middle class’s emergence and its occasional overlaps with the upper class posed to be aspirational for economic and administrative potentials during colonial times. What was unique for India was that, unlike the ideal theoretical situation, pressure groups predated the idea of political parties in India. The pressure groups were basically autonomous in terms of their ambitions, garnering the audience of support and operationalisation. These groups promoted the class-consciousness silently but emphatically. Accordingly, the political parties after their emergences followed on the same lines and addressed class issues either covertly or overtly. Since independence, the political parties particularly the national ones have been concentrating on social developments as their policy-targets. As a consequence, the basic method of implementation of development policies has amounted to the garnering of class issues. Thus, the focus of the political parties has remained the same more or less. Though in this phase, identity politics continuously tried to take a concrete position, yet the class narratives implied by those policies of the political parties articulated either as pledges through their electoral mandates or when they come to power, have interplayed relentlessly. Consequently, class as a factor in the Indian party-politics is very much prominent even in the days of globalisation. This article, which is historical and interpretative in nature, tries to explore the class discourses of the political parties in the pre-and post-colonial eras in India.