Even old, established democracies see the need for constant evolutionary change in order to survive and succeed. In Britain, a coterie of “senior wise men” of the Tory party would choose the leader. (Needless to say, there were presumably no wise women!) This system suited elitists like Anthony Eden and Alec Douglas Hume. It is only after the Tories changed their process for selecting leaders that a middle-class person — and a woman at that, Margaret Thatcher — was able to emerge. The rest, of course, is history.

Labour discovered to its dismay that union bosses who represented at best a small section of activists had disproportionate power. Local party units were getting infiltrated by diehard Marxists as most ordinary Labour supporters did not have the time or the inclination to attend endless boring committee meetings. The union bosses and the extremists controlling the constituency units were making Labour virtually unelectable. The party realised this and went in for reforms, which reduced the power of unions and made it impossible for unrepresentative extremists to gain control. That was the beginning of Labour’s revival.

In India and our immediate neighbourhood, we have regressed rather than evolve constructively. The beginning of the end of i nner-party democracy in the Congress must squarely be placed as Mahatma Gandhi’s doing. When Subhash Chandra Bose defeated the Mahatma’s candidate, Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in a fairly fought election for the Tripuri session, Bose was simply “not allowed” to operate and he subsequently resigned. It was clear to all observers that only Gandhi’s nominee could lead the Congress irrespective of the views of the rank and file party members. The Congress party has an unelected body known as the “High Command”, which appoints state leaders and chooses MP/MLA candidates. Other parties now imitate the Congress. The expression ‘High Command’ was used in Germany not so long ago by a very undemocratic dispensation. For parties nominally committed to democratic principles to routinely use this expression is very curious indeed.

... contd.