Government and society
Constitutional framework

The architects of India’s constitution, though drawing on many external sources, were most heavily influenced by the British model of parliamentary democracy. In addition, a number of principles were adopted from the Constitution of the United States of America, including the separation of powers among the major branches of government, the establishment of a supreme court, and the adoption, albeit in modified form, of a federal structure (a constitutional division of power between the union [central] and state governments). The mechanical details for running the central government, however, were largely carried over from the Government of India Act of 1935, passed by the British Parliament, which served as India’s constitution in the waning days of British colonial rule.

The new constitution promulgated on Jan. 26, 1950, proclaimed India “a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic.” With 395 articles, 10 (later 12) schedules (each clarifying and expanding upon a number of articles), and more than 90 amendments, it is one of the longest and most detailed constitutions in the world. The constitution includes a detailed list of “fundamental rights,” a lengthy list of “directive principles of state policy” (goals that the state is obligated to promote, though with no specified timetable for their accomplishment [an idea taken from the Irish constitution]), and a much shorter list of “fundamental duties” of the citizen.

The remainder of the constitution outlines in great detail the structure, powers, and manner of operation of the union (central) and state governments. It also includes provisions for protecting the rights and promoting the interests of certain classes of citizens (e.g., disadvantaged social groups, officially designated as “Scheduled Castes” and “Scheduled Tribes”) and the process for constitutional amendment. The extraordinary specificity of India’s constitution is such that amendments, which average nearly two per year, have frequently been required to deal with issues that in other countries would be handled by routine legislation. With a few exceptions, the passage of an amendment requires only a simple majority of both houses of parliament, but this majority must form two-thirds of those present and voting.

Constitutional structure

The three lists contained in the constitution’s seventh schedule detail the areas in which the union and state governments may legislate. The union list outlines the areas in which the union government has exclusive authority, which include foreign policy, defense, communications, currency, taxation on corporations and nonagricultural income, and railroads. State governments have the sole power to legislate on such subjects as law and order, public health and sanitation, local government, betting and gambling, and taxation on agricultural income, entertainment, and alcoholic beverages. The items on the concurrent list include those on which both the union government and state governments may legislate, though a union law generally takes precedence; among these areas are criminal law, marriage and divorce, contracts, economic and social planning, population control and family planning, trade unions, social security, and education. Matters requiring legislation that are not specifically covered in the listed powers lie within the exclusive domain of the central government.


Union government

The three branches of the union government are charged with different responsibilities, but the constitution also provides a fair degree of interdependence. The executive branch consists of the president, vice president, and a Council of Ministers, led by the prime minister. Within the legislative branch are the two houses of parliament—the lower house, or Lok Sabha (House of the People), and the upper house, or Rajya Sabha (Council of States). The president of India is also considered part of parliament. At the apex of the judicial branch is the Supreme Court, whose decisions are binding on the higher and lower courts of the state governments.

Executive branch

India’s head of state is the president who is elected to a five-year renewable term by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of parliament and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of all the states. The vice president, chosen by an electoral college made up of only the two houses of parliament, presides over the Rajya Sabha. If the president dies or otherwise leaves office, the vice president assumes the position until an election can be held.

The powers of the president are largely nominal and ceremonial, except in times of emergency, and the president normally acts on the advice of the prime minister. The proper limits of the president’s power are sometimes a matter for debate. The president may, however, proclaim a national state of emergency when there is perceived to be a grave threat to the country’s security or impose direct presidential rule at the state level when it is thought that a particular state legislative assembly has become incapable of functioning effectively. The president may also dissolve the Lok Sabha and call for new parliamentary elections after a prime minister loses a vote of confidence.

Effective executive power rests with the Council of Ministers, headed by the prime minister, who is chosen by the majority party or coalition in the Lok Sabha and is formally appointed by the president. The Council of Ministers, also formally appointed by the president, is selected by the prime minister. The most important group within the council is the cabinet. Cabinet portfolios are assigned partly on the basis of interest and competence but also on the basis of demonstrated loyalty to the ruling party or party leader and on the implicit need to represent the country’s major regions and population groups (e.g., based on religion, language, caste, and gender). The prime minister and the Council of Ministers remain in power throughout the term of the Lok Sabha, unless they lose a vote of confidence.

Legislative branch

Of the two houses of parliament, the more powerful is the Lok Sabha, in which the prime minister leads the ruling party or coalition. The constitution limits the number of elected members of the Lok Sabha to 530 from the states and 20 from the union territories, allotted roughly in proportion to their population. The president may also nominate two members of the Anglo-Indian community if it appears that this community is not being adequately represented. Members of the Lok Sabha serve for terms of five years, unless the house is dissolved before that.

Membership in the Rajya Sabha is not to exceed 250. Of these members, 12 are nominated by the president to represent literature, science, art, and social service, and the balance are proportionally elected by the state legislative assemblies. The Rajya Sabha is not subject to dissolution, but one-third of its members retire at the end of every second year. Legislative bills may originate in either house—except for financial bills, which may originate only in the Lok Sabha—and require passage by simple majorities in both houses in order to become law.


The day-to-day functioning of the government is performed by permanent ministries and other public service agencies. These are led by members of the Indian Administrative Service and other specialized services, who are chosen by competitive examination. Rules of recruitment and retirement and conditions of service are determined by the Union Public Service Commission (or, for state governments, by state public service commissions). There has been a steady proliferation of agencies and growth in the size of the bureaucracy since independence, with a concomitant increase in regulations, which often impede—rather than facilitate—administration.

Foreign policy

India’s foreign policy has been officially one of nonalignment with any of the world’s major power blocs. The country was a founding member of the Nonaligned Movement during the Cold War. India has also been a major player among the group of more than 100 low-income countries, loosely described as the “Global South,” that have sought to deal collectively in economic matters with the industrialized states of the “Global North.”

India has maintained its membership in the Commonwealth (formerly the British Commonwealth of Nations), and in 1950 it became the first Commonwealth country to change from a dominion to a republic. It was a charter member, even though not yet independent, of the United Nations (as it was of the earlier League of Nations) and has played an active role in virtually all the organs within the United Nations system. In 1985 India joined six neighbouring countries in launching the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

State and local governments

The government structure of the states, defined by the constitution, closely resembles that of the union. The executive branch is composed of a governor—like the president, a mostly nominal and ceremonial post—and a council of ministers, led by the chief minister.

All states have a Vidhan Sabha (Legislative Assembly), popularly elected for terms of up to five years, while a small (and declining) number of states also have an upper house, the Vidhan Parishad (Legislative Council), roughly comparable to the Rajya Sabha, with memberships that may not be more than one-third the size of the assemblies. In these councils, one-sixth of the members are nominated by the governor, and the remainder are elected by various categories of specially qualified voters. State governors are also regarded as members of the legislative assemblies, which they may suspend or dissolve when no party is able to muster a working majority.

Each Indian state is organized into a number of districts, which are divided for certain administrative purposes into units variously known as tahsils, taluqs, or subdivisions. These are further divided into community development blocks, each typically consisting of about 100 villages. Superimposed on these units is a three-tiered system of local government. At the lowest level, each village elects its own governing council (gram pancayat). The chairman of a gram pancayat is also the village representative on the council of the community development block (pancayat samiti). Each pancayat samiti, in turn, selects a representative to the district-level council (zila parishad). Separate from this system are the municipalities, which generally are governed by their own elected councils.

From the state down to the village, government appointees administer the various government departments and agencies. Financial grants from higher levels, often made on a matching basis, provide developmental incentives and facilitate the execution of desired projects. Approving, withholding, or manipulating grants, however, often serves as a lever for the accumulation of personal power and as a vehicle of corruption.


The tradition of an independent judiciary has taken strong root in India. The Supreme Court, whose presidentially appointed judges may serve until the age of 65, determines the constitutional validity of union government legislation, adjudicates disputes between the union and the states (as well as disputes between two or more states), and handles appeals from lower-level courts. Each state has a high court and a number of lower courts. The high courts may rule on the constitutionality of state laws, issue a variety of writs, and serve as courts of appeal from the lower courts, over which they exercise general oversight.

Political process

Oversight of the electoral process is vested in the Election Commission. There is universal adult suffrage, and the age of eligibility is 18. Seats are allocated from constituencies of roughly equal population. A certain number of constituencies in each state are reserved for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes based on their proportion of the total state population. Those reserved constituencies shift from one election to the next. As candidates do not have to be and frequently are not residents of the areas they seek to represent, none runs the risk of losing a seat solely by virtue of the allocation procedure.

The Indian party system is complex. Based on performance in past elections, some parties are recognized as national parties and others as state parties. Parties are allocated symbols (e.g., a cow or a hammer and sickle), and ballots are printed with these symbols to help illiterate voters. The only party that has enjoyed a nationwide following continuously from the time of independence (in fact, since its founding in 1885) is the Indian National Congress. There have been several party schisms, however, and the Indian National Congress–Indira, or simply the Congress (I)—created in 1978 by the former prime minister Indira Gandhi and her supporters—has been by far the most successful of its derivative entities. Parties to the left of the Congress have included not only the Communist Party of India, which generally followed the lead of the Soviet Union, and the subsequently formed Communist Party of India (Marxist), more inclined toward policies espoused by China, but also an assortment of small, mainly short-lived Marxist and socialist groups. Parties to the right of the Congress have largely appealed either to Hindu sentiments (such as the Bharatiya Janata [“Indian People’s”] Party; BJP) or those of other communally defined groups, and some have sought to further the interests of landed constituencies (the preindependence princely families or the more recently affluent peasant factions).

Over time there has been a steady increase in the number and power of parties promoting the parochial interests of individual states. As a result, political bargains and alliances between parties with widely divergent platforms are made and dissolved frequently. Moreover, expedient defections from one party to another in pursuit of personal political ambitions have become a feature of the political system. Legislation aimed at discouraging this practice has had only limited success.


Most police functions in India are handled through the states. There are, however, a number of centrally controlled police forces, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (to deal with certain breaches of union laws), the Border Security Force, the volunteer auxiliary force of Home Guards (to help in times of emergency, such as riots or natural disasters), the Central Reserve Police Force, and the Central Industrial Security Force. There are also several paramilitary forces deployed to provide internal security and border defense.

The combined Indian armed forces—comprising the army, navy, coast guard, and air force—are among the largest in the world. The army is the largest of these, with more than four-fifths of military personnel. Each of the services consists solely of volunteers and is led by a well-trained, professional corps of officers that historically has eschewed interfering with domestic politics.

Much of the military’s equipment was obtained from the former Soviet Union. The army has several thousand main battle tanks (though many are relatively antiquated), a comparable number of artillery pieces (both towed and self-propelled), and large numbers of armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles. The air force is equipped with numerous high-performance aircraft, including fighters and fighter/ground-attack jets, helicopters, and various fixed-wing support aircraft. The navy has a large submarine fleet and boasts a single aircraft carrier, but its remaining surface vessels consist mainly of smaller craft such as destroyers, frigates, and patrol craft. The country’s nuclear arsenal—thought to consist of several dozen relatively small devices—is controlled by Strategic Forces Command; the military also deploys short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.

Health and welfare















The Republic of India
The Nehru era, 1947–64



Government and politics



Foreign policy







Economic planning and development




Post-Nehru politics and foreign policy


The 1965 war with Pakistan



Indira Gandhi’s impact




The Bangladesh war




Emergency rule




The Janata interlude and the return of Indira Gandhi





Sikh separatism




India since the mid-1980s
The premiership of Rajiv Gandhi





Foreign policy




V.P. Singh’s coalition—its brief rise and fall





Congress government of Narasimha Rao





The first and second BJP governments

Despite a booming national economy, the Congress (I) polled poorly in the 1996 general election, falling from 260 seats in the Lok Sabha to only 140 (an all-time low). In part, this drop in Congress (I) support stemmed from accusations of political corruption on the part of Narasimha Rao; to some extent, however, it signaled a rise in Hindu nationalism in the form of the BJP. That party increased its representation in the Lok Sabha from 113 to 161, the overall largest party representation, but no party had sufficient seats to form a government. The BJP, led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was unable to form a stable coalition, and Vajpayee held the premiership for scarcely a week.

A hastily contrived coalition, the United Front (UF), under Janata Dal politician H.D. Deve Gowda, soon was able to seat a government. But the UF relied on the support of the Congress (I) from the outside, in exchange for continuing certain Congress policies. The coalition still proved unstable, and Gowda was replaced as prime minister in April 1997 by Inder Kumar Gujral, also of the Janat Dal. However, an interim report on Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination released in November stated that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, a member of the UF, shared responsibility in Gandhi’s death. The Congress (I) removed its support, and, after the collapse of the UF, new elections were slated for March 1998. (The claims against the DMK were never substantiated.)

Much to the chagrin of the Congress (I), the BJP polled well in the March elections, increasing its membership in the Lok Sabha from 160 seats to 179. The Congress (I), now led by Sonia Gandhi, increased their representation slightly, garnering an additional five seats. No single party seemed to be in a position to form a government (Janata Dal had fallen to a mere six seats), and it was only after much politicking that the BJP was able to form a new governing coalition, again under Vajpayee.

The BJP coalition, called the National Democratic Alliance, crumbled in April 1999 and operated as a caretaker government until elections that fall. The BJP again had a good outing, outpolling all other parties and raising its representation in the Lok Sabha to 182 seats. The Congress (I) representation in the lower house eroded even further, to 112 seats.



Return of the Congress

The BJP espoused a broad Hindu nativism. During the years of BJP government, Hindu products were favoured over imports, names of cities were changed—either to reflect the precolonial name (Chennai for Madras) or to bring the name more in line with local pronunciation (Kolkata for Calcutta)—and the party openly opposed what it considered non-Hindu values.

Given India’s tradition of secular politics, many Indians were uncomfortable with the BJP’s pro-Hindu approach, and this discomfort was perhaps one of the reasons why the BJP had such a poor showing at the May 2004 elections. The Congress (I) regained some ground lost in previous general elections, raising its representation in the Lok Sabha to 145 seats; the BJP’s membership fell to 138 seats. As had become the pattern in other recent elections, no party was situated to call a government on its own, so the Congress (I) formed a coalition known as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Congress leader Sonia Gandhi opted not to take the premiership, however, and instead recommended Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, for the post.


Singh’s government also sought to build diplomatic bridges to Pakistan and to combat terrorism both at home and abroad. Along with the growth of terror by Muslim extremists, India experienced a rise in violence among communist (mostly Maoist) groups known as Naxalites. First formed in the 1960s, Naxalite groups experienced a revival in the early 21st century, espousing a doctrine of liberation and emancipation. They generally operated in the fringes of society in the most economically backward regions and were highly attractive to marginalized tribal peoples, poor rural residents, and others with grievances, either real or imagined. The union government soon acknowledged that Naxalism, along with terrorism, were significant threats to internal security in India.

Prime ministers of India
