The party has grown in recent years because of the gradual disappearance

of all other right-wing parties, decline of Congress, and the support of the
burgeoning middle classes, which have, however, hardly any commitment
to equity and social justice. But BJP, too, is beginning to suffer from many
of the ailments of Congress as it grows electorally as an alternative to it on
an all-India scale.
In recent years, a large number of regional or one-state, one-leader
parties have come into existence as a result of specific local factors, the
decline of Congress, and the immense possibilities of making economic
gains through politics.

Corruption
The prevalence of large-scale corruption, growth of crime and
criminalization of politics and police have become major threats to India’s
development, democracy and moral health.
The colonial administration was from the beginning inaccessible to the
common people and ridden with corruption except at the top where salaries
were very high. But because of the underdeveloped character of the
economy and the limited character of the colonial state’s functioning
corruption affected only a small segment of the people. However, with the
introduction of the permit-licence-quota regime, shortages of consumer
goods, and high taxation during the Second World War, blackmarketing,
and tax evasion became widespread. But corruption had not yet pervaded
the administration or touched the political system.
Economic development, a rapid and large increase in the development
and regulatory functions of the state opened up vast areas of the economy
and administration to corruption. Political patronage could also now be used
to gain access to the economic resources of the state and to acquire permits,
licences and quotas.
There were major signals in the Nehru era that political and
administrative corruption, including large-scale tax evasion, was beginning
to burgeon. Strong and timely steps could, however, have checked further
erosion of the system as also reversed the trend. In the fifties, the tentacles
of corruption were not yet far-reaching and major barriers to it existed in
the form of a political leadership and cadre with their roots in the freedom
struggle and Gandhian ethos, a largely honest bureaucracy, especially in its
middle and higher reaches, and a judiciary with high integrity. But little was
done in the matter. Nehru did take up individual cases of corruption but no
strategy was evolved to deal with the roots of the problem and to act
expeditiously.
As a result, the scale of corruption went on increasing as the government
began to assume a larger role in the life of the people. Over time, the
political system too began to fall prey to corruption. Not tackled at the
lower levels, corruption gradually reached the higher levels of
administration and politics. With added fillip provided by political
patronage, rampant and all-pervading corruption began to engulf and
corrode the administration. Corruption is, however, no longer the preserve
of the bureaucrats and the politicians. No section of society is free from it;
the media, academia, the professions and the judiciary have also got tainted
by it. Today, so far as the common citizens are concerned, corruption, along
with administrative delays and inefficiency, has become the bane of their
lives.
The saving grace, however, is that there are still a large number of honest
officials and political workers and leaders, but they are neither rewarded nor
given recognition for being honest and are overshadowed by the constant
denunciation, and even exaggeration of corruption in administration and
public life.
A major source of corruption in the Indian political system since the late
sixties is the funding of elections. Elections have been becoming costlier by
the day giving unfair advantage to those backed by moneybags and black
money.
For years, communal and caste riots have been initiating hooligans into
politics. As a result of communalism and casteism, laxity in enforcement of
law and order, corruption, and the use of money and muscle power in
elections there has been the criminalization of politics in some parts of the
country, with a nexus developing between politicians, businessmen,
bureaucracy, police and criminals. The two naked expression of this
unhealthy phenomenon are the large scale on which money, criminal gangs
and civil servants are used for ‘booth-capturing’ and to rig elections in
some states and the criminal records of some of those elected to the
parliament and the state legislatures. One positive development in this
respect, however, is the growing debate in the country on the ways and
means—ideological, political, and institutional—needed to deal with the
twin evils of corruption and the role of criminal elements and money power
in politics.

Conclusion
Despite a certain disarray and deterioration in some of India’s political
institutions they have continued to function and shown a resilience that has
surprised many political scientists and dismayed the prophets of doom.
Despite ineffective government, unstable central governments in recent
years, greater violence in society, corruption in administration and political
life, decay in political parties and party system, the prevalence of
widespread cynicism regarding politics and political institutions, India’s
democracy has shown remarkable vitality and continues to flourish, and its
institutions have taken deep root. The authority of the electoral system has
gone unchallenged so far. Elections, conducted under the watchful eyes of
an independent Election Commission, still validate leaders and parties. The
weapon of the vote is cherished and freely used by the people, especially
the poor and the intelligentsia, to express their desires, to show their
preference for particular policies and to punish at the ballot-box those who
promise but do not deliver.
The only unfortunate part is that as in other democracies, the Indian
political system lacks a mechanism through which the direction and
implementation of the policies preferred by the electorate can be enforced.
There is, therefore, a strong need to reform and reinvigorate both political
and administrative institutions to meet the changed needs of the time,