No questions perhaps used to be asked more anxiously and more consistently during the early years of our independence than those relating to the advisability and future of parliamentary institutions in India after Nehru disappeared from the political scene. The political behaviour of the masses, particularly the General Elections of 1967 and 1971, and the smooth, orderly transfer of power at the Centre and in the States, however, seemed to have given what perhaps might ultimately be the answer of history, namely, that the makers of the Constitution were not starry-eyed idealists, and that their faith in the sturdy commonsense and capacity for political judgment of the masses, though poor and illiterate and their preference for secular democracy was not mistaken. But political developments since 1975 have once again raised doubts regarding the suitability, desirability, and / or effectiveness of the parliamentary form of government, and there are not a few who voice a preference for the presidential system of which seems to make the Chief Executive relatively more independent of legislature. In the context of the growing dissatisfaction with the working of the parliamentary system, the India, Political Science Association organized a panel discussion on a comparative study of the two systems in terms of leadership, effectiveness and suitability for a highly diverse society as ours. This book contains selected papers, which were presented at the Conference and some of which have been especially written by scholars belonging to different regions and communities but all of them united on one and the same objective, that is strengthening the bases of Indian democracy. The papers provide theoretical perspectives and also focus attention on the achievements of the Indian polity as well as the challenges confronting it in the Herculian struggle to preserve and promote ‘Unity in Diversity’ and simultaneously establish an egalitarian society through planned economic development and socio-cultural welfare. The papers are marked by lucidity of expression and clarity of thought and the book should be of interest and use to academics and decision-makers, and politicians and publicists, teachers and students of political science.
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