4. Political Failures

1. The main cause and source of politicaldecay is the ineptness of the electoral process which has not been able

to keep out criminal, anti-social and undesirable elements from participating in and even dominating the political scene and polluting the electoral and parliamentary processes.

2. Though democratic traditions are stabilizing, however, democracy cannot be said to be an inclusive representative democracy. The pluralism and diversity of India is not reflected in and captured by its democratic institutions; likewise, participation of women in public affairs and decision-making processes is nowhere near proportionate to their numbers.

3. The enormity of the costs of elections and electoral corruption have been having a grievous deleterious effect on national progress and has led to the degradation of political processes to detriment of common good.

4. Political parties, which have a fair share of the criminal elements, handle enormous funds collected ostensibly for meeting party and electoral expenditure. Money-power and criminal elements have contributed to pervasive degeneration of standards in public life and have criminalized politics. This is reflected in the quality of governments and of the governing processes.

5. There are no legal instrumentalities or set of law regulating the conduct of the political parties, legitimacy of fundraising, audit and account requirements and inner-party democracy.

6. National political parties are more divided on the definition of 'common national purpose’ than ever before; the noble purposes of public life have degenerated than ever before into opportunistic and self-seeking politics of competitive personal gain.

7. 'Fraternity’, the noble ideal of brotherhood of man, enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution has remained unrealized. The people of India are more divided amongst themselves than at the time of the country’s independence.

8. There is increasing criminalization and exploitation of the political climate and processes and an increasing criminals- politicians-bureaucratic nexus.

9. There is crisis of confidence. There is crisis of leadership. Political leaders, owing to narrow partisan and sectarian

interests and desire for short-time political gains, are unable even to agree upon broad common national purposes.