Test: Class 10 Polity NCERT Based-1 - UPSC MCQ

• In a democracy several different kinds of organisations work behind any big struggle. These organisations play their role in two ways.

• One obvious way of influencing the decisions in a democracy is direct participation in competitive politics.

• This is done by creating parties, contesting elections and forming governments. There are many indirect ways in which people can get governments to listen to their demands or their point of view.

• They could do so by forming an organisation and undertaking activities to promote their interest or their viewpoint. These are called interest groups or pressure groups. Pressure groups are organisations that attempt to influence government policies.

• But unlike political parties, pressure groups do not aim to directly control or share political power. These organisations are formed when people with common occupation, interest, aspirations or opinions come together in order to achieve a common objective.

• Like an interest group, a movement attempts to influence politics rather than directly take part in electoral competition. But unlike the interest groups, movements have a loose organisation.

• Their decision making is more informal and flexible. They depend much more on spontaneous mass participation than an interest group. The groups involved with movements also include a very wide variety.

• Most of the movements are issue specific movements that seek to achieve a single objective within a limited time frame.

• Others are more general or generic movements that seek to achieve a broad goal in the very long term. The Nepalese movement for democracy arose with the specific objective of reversing the king’s orders that led to suspension of democracy.

• A political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government.

• They agree on some policies and programmes for the society with a view to promote the collective good.

• Since there can be different views on what is good for all, parties try to persuade people why their policies are better than others.They seek to implement these policies by winning popular support through elections. Thus, parties reflect fundamental political divisions in a society.

Functions of Political Parties Basically, political parties fill political offices and exercise political power. Parties do so by performing a series of functions:

1. Parties contest elections : In most democracies, elections are fought mainly among the candidates put up by political parties. Parties select their candidates in different ways. In some countries, such as the USA, members and supporters of a party choose its candidates. In other countries like India, top party leaders choose candidates for contesting elections.

2. Parties put forward different policies and programmes and the voters choose from them.

3. Parties play a decisive role in making laws for a country. Formally, laws are debated and passed in the legislature. But since most of the members belong to a party, they go by the direction of the party leadership, irrespective of their personal opinions.

4. Parties form and run governments: Parties recruit leaders, train them and then make them ministers to run the government in the way they want.

5. Those parties that lose in the elections play the role of opposition to the parties in power, by voicing different views and criticising the government for its failures or wrong policies. Opposition parties also mobilise opposition to the government.

6. Parties shape public opinion: They raise and highlight issues. Parties have lakhs of members and activists spread all over the country. Many of the pressure groups are the extensions of political parties among different sections of society.

7. Parties provide people access to government machinery and welfare schemes implemented by governments. For an ordinary citizen it is easier to approach a local party leader than a government officer.

1. In a democracy any group of citizens is free to form a political party. In this formal sense there are a large number of political parties in each country.

2. In some countries only one party is allowed to control and run the government. These are called one-party systems.

3. Any democratic system must allow at least two parties to compete in elections and provide a fair chance for the competing parties to come to power. In some countries, power usually changes between two main parties.

4. Several other parties may exist, contest elections and win a few seats in the national legislatures. But only the two main parties have a serious chance of winning a majority of seats to form government. Such a party system is called a two-party system. The United States of America and the United Kingdom are examples of two-party systems.

5. If several parties compete for power, and more than two parties have a reasonable chance of coming to power either on their own strength or in alliance with others, we call it a multi-party system.

• Democracies that follow a federal system all over the world tend to have two kinds of political parties. Parties that are present in only one of the federal units and parties that are present in several or all units of the federation.

• This is the case in India as well. There are some countrywide parties, which are called ‘national parties’. These parties have their units in various states. But by and large all these units follow the same policies, programmes and strategy that is decided at the national level.

• Every party in the country has to register with the Election Commission. While the Commission treats all parties equally, it offers some special facilities to large and established parties.

• These parties are given a unique symbol – only the official candidates of that party can use that election symbol. Parties that get this privilege and some other special facilities are ‘recognised’ by the Election Commission for this purpose. That is why these parties are called, ‘recognised political parties’.