Recent Developments in Indian Politics

Why this chapter matters for UPSC: NCERT's last chapter is "a synoptic view" of politics since 1989, written with a warning: the developments "are also controversial, for these involve deep conflicts and we are still too close to the events." It is NCERT's Chapter 8 in the rationalised Reprint 2026-27 (the site keeps its old number, 9), and it was re-set in March 2024: the Ayodhya section is now told through the Supreme Court's judgment of 9 November 2019, and the election narrative runs to the BJP's majorities of 2014 and 2019. GS2 asks whether the governmental system has responded to liberalisation since 1991 (Mains 2016), whether national parties favour centralisation and regional parties State autonomy (Mains 2022), and why Article 356 has been used less since the mid-1990s (Mains 2023), the question whose answer is the coalition era this chapter describes; GS1 asks about Dalit assertion (Mains 2015), for which NCERT's BSP passage is the record. This page follows NCERT's order, dates every government from the Prime Minister's Office's pages, gives the Election Commission's figures where NCERT rounds them (the Congress won 404 seats in the 1984 polls, 414 after the 1985 polls, not 415), and quotes the Mandal, Shah Bano and Ayodhya records. Two errors of the old page are worth naming: it filed the abrogation of Article 370 under the 2014-19 government (it belongs to August 2019, in the next term), and it presented MGNREGA as a running programme after its repeal on 1 July 2026.

🧠 First Principles — Read This First

Four questions, no answers. NCERT says the chapter "does not answer these questions": the implications of coalition politics, what "Mandalisation" means for representation, the legacy of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, and what a new policy consensus does "to the nature of political choices". It gives "the necessary information and some tools". That is the examiner's stance too: the questions are analytical, and the information must be exact.

The end of the Congress system, again. The 1989 defeat "marked the end of what political scientists have called the 'Congress system'" (chapters 2 and 5); the Congress "remained an important party and ruled the country more than any other party even in this period", but "it lost the kind of centrality it earlier enjoyed". What replaced it was not another dominant party but "an era of multi-party system": "no single party secured a clear majority of seats in any Lok Sabha election held since 1989 till 2014", when "the BJP got clear majority on its own".

Competition inside a consensus. NCERT's closing judgment: from one-party dominance India "arrived at a more competitive politics, but politics that is based on a certain implicit agreement among the main political actors": the four elements of the consensus. Meanwhile popular movements "are simultaneously identifying new forms, visions and pathways of development", "reminding the state of its responsibility". "Democratic politics is here to stay in India."

PART 1 — Quick Reference

The Chapter at a Glance

Governments since 1989 (Prime Minister's Office, former Prime Ministers' pages)

Elections and Numbers (Election Commission of India unless stated)

Dates and Records (checked against the record named)

PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative

Context of the 1990s

Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister after Indira Gandhi's assassination and "led the Congress to a massive victory" in 1984. As the eighties closed, "five developments ... were to make a long-lasting impact on our politics."

1. The 1989 defeat. "The party that had won as many as 415 seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984 was reduced to only 197." It returned "soon after the mid-term elections held in 1991", but "the elections of 1989 marked the end of what political scientists have called the 'Congress system'": important still, ruling "more than any other party even in this period since 1989", but without "the kind of centrality it earlier enjoyed".
2. The Mandal issue. The National Front government's 1990 decision to implement the Commission's recommendation that central government jobs be reserved for the Other Backward Classes "led to violent 'anti-Mandal' protests"; the dispute "was to play an important role in shaping politics since 1989."
3. The new economic policy. "The economic policy followed by the various governments took a radically different turn": the structural adjustment programme or new economic reforms, "started by Rajiv Gandhi", "first became very visible in 1991 and radically changed the direction that the Indian economy had pursued since Independence"; criticised "by various movements and organisations", yet "the various governments that came to power in this period have continued to follow these." (NCERT's photograph: Manmohan Singh, then Finance Minister, with Prime Minister Narasimha Rao "in the initial phase of the 'New Economic Policy'".)
4. Ayodhya. "The centuries old legal and political dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple in Ayodhya started influencing the politics of India"; the movement "transformed the direction of the discourse on secularism and democracy", and the changes "culminated in the construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya following the decision of the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court (which was announced on November 9, 2019)."
5. Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, May 1991, "by a Sri Lankan Tamil linked to the LTTE when he was on an election campaign tour in Tamil Nadu" (21 May 1991, at Sriperumbudur, in the Supreme Court's record of the case); the Congress "emerged as the single largest party" in 1991 and chose Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister (21 June 1991).

Era of Coalitions

The 1989 election defeated the Congress "but did not result in a majority for any other party". The Congress, though the largest party, "decided to sit in the opposition". The National Front ("an alliance of Janata Dal and some other regional parties") "received support from two diametrically opposite political groups: the BJP and the Left Front", which "did not join in this government". NCERT's cartoon shows V.P. Singh held up by Jyoti Basu and L.K. Advani.

Decline of the Congress. The defeat "marked the end of Congress dominance over the Indian party system". The sixties' challenge had been met by Indira Gandhi's restoration (chapter 5); the nineties' challenge "did not, however, mean the emergence of any other single party to fill in its place." "Thus, began an era of multi-party system": many parties had always contested, but after 1989 "one or two parties did not get most of the votes or seats", so "no single party secured a clear majority of seats in any Lok Sabha election held since 1989 till 2014", and coalition governments at the Centre, "in which regional parties played a crucial role", became the rule, "but in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP got clear majority on its own."

Alliance politics. The nineties "saw the emergence of powerful parties and movements that represented the Dalit and backward castes", many also "powerful regional assertion", with "an important role in the United Front government that came to power in 1996", a front like the National Front (Janata Dal and regional parties) but this time supported by the Congress, not the BJP: "In 1989, both the Left and the BJP supported the National Front Government because they wanted to keep the Congress out of power. In 1996, the Left continued to support the non-Congress government but this time the Congress, supported it, as both the Congress and the Left wanted to keep the BJP out of power." The BJP "continued to consolidate its position in the elections of 1991 and 1996", emerged as the largest party in 1996 "and was invited to form the government", but "could not secure a majority"; it "finally came to power by leading a coalition government from May 1998 to June 1999 and was re-elected in October 1999", with Vajpayee Prime Minister in both NDA governments, the 1999 one completing "its full term". Since 1989 "there have been eleven governments at the Centre, all of which have either been coalition governments or minority governments supported by other parties", each "formed only with the participation or support of many regional parties": the National Front (1989), the United Front (1996 and 1997), the BJP-led coalition (1998), the NDA (1999), the UPA (2004 and 2009). "However, this trend changed in 2014."

Political Rise of Other Backward Classes

"One long-term development of this period was the rise of Other Backward Classes as a political force." The OBCs, "communities other than SC and ST who suffer from educational and social backwardness", also called "backward castes", had been moving away from the Congress since chapter 6's 1977 election, when the Janata Party, with constituents like the Bharatiya Kranti Dal and the Samyukta Socialist Party that "had a powerful rural base among some sections of the OBC", first gave the rise "political expression at the national level". In the 1980s the Janata Dal "brought together a similar combination". The National Front's decision to implement the Mandal Commission "further helped in shaping the politics of 'Other Backward Classes'": "the intense national debate for and against reservation in jobs made people from the OBC communities more aware of this identity", and parties emerged "that sought better opportunities for OBCs in education and employment and also raised the question of the share of power enjoyed by the OBCs", arguing that since OBCs "constituted a large segment of Indian society, it was only democratic that the OBCs should get adequate representation in administration and have their due share of political power."

Political fallouts. The 1980s "also saw the rise of political organisation of the Dalits": in 1978 the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) was formed, "not an ordinary trade union of government employees" but a body that "took a strong position in favour of political power to the 'bahujan', the SC, ST, OBC and minorities"; from it came the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti and "later the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ... under the leadership of Kanshi Ram" (NCERT's box: BAMCEF, DS-4 "and finally the BSP in 1984"). The BSP "began as a small party supported largely by Dalit voters in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh", then "in 1989 and the 1991 elections ... achieved a breakthrough in Uttar Pradesh", "the first time in independent India that a political party supported mainly by Dalit voters had achieved this kind of political success." Under Kanshi Ram it was "an organisation based on pragmatic politics", confident that "the Bahujans ... constituted the majority of the population"; it has been "a major political player in the State" and "in government on more than one occasion", with its strongest support still from Dalit voters but a wider base now. "In many parts of India, Dalit politics and OBC politics have developed independently and often in competition with each other." (GS1 2015 on Dalit assertion: use this passage with the Dalit Panthers of the 2020-21 chapter 7.)

Communalism, Secularism, Democracy

"The other long-term development ... was the visible rise of politics based on religious identity leading to a debate about secularism and democracy." After the Janata Party's break-up "the supporters of erstwhile Jana Sangh formed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980", initially on "a broader political platform": "'Gandhian' Socialism along with cultural nationalism". It "did not get much success in the elections held in 1984"; "after 1986, the party began to emphasise nationalism as the core of its ideology" and "pursued the politics of 'Hindutva' for political mobilisation". NCERT's definition: Hindutva "was popularised by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, as the basis of Indian nationhood"; to be an Indian "one must accept India as their 'fatherland' (pitrubhu) as well as their holy land (punyabhu)"; its believers "argue that a strong nation can be built on the basis of a united national culture", which in India's case Hindutva can provide.

Shah Bano. "Two developments around 1986 became central to the politics of BJP." In the Shah Bano case of 1985 "a 62-year old divorced Muslim woman, had filed a case for maintenance from her former husband. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of Shah Bano" (23 April 1985). "The orthodox Muslims saw the Supreme Court's order as an interference in Muslim Personal Law", and "on the demand of some Muslim leaders, the government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 that nullified the Supreme Court's judgement", opposed "by many women's organisations, many Muslim groups and most of the intellectuals"; the BJP "criticised this action of the Congress government as an unnecessary concession and 'appeasement' of the minority community." (NCERT's exercise 2 pairs the case with "Personal Law and Gender Justice".)

The Ayodhya issue. NCERT's 2024 text: the issue "was deeply rooted in socio-cultural and political history", involving "contentions regarding the birth place of Shri Ram, one of the most holy religious sites, and its legal ownership"; "the 500-year long history, starting from 1528, is marked by numerous conflicts which are also documented in Lucknow, Barabanki and Faizabad district Gazetteers" (the "Do you know?" box recounts Nihang Sikhs performing puja and havan at the site on 28 November 1858 "before being forcibly ousted by colonial administration"). "A three-dome structure was built at the site of Shri Ram's birth place in 1528, but the structure had visible display of Hindu symbols and relics", so the issue "got linked to the national pride in its ancient civilization"; a "prolonged legal battle" led to "the structure being sealed in 1949". "In 1986 ... the Faizabad (now Ayodhya) district court ruled to unlock the structure, allowing people to worship there" (the District Judge's order of 1 February 1986, in the 2019 judgment's account); "although Shilaanyas for the temple was done, further construction remained prohibited"; tensions over ownership "resulted in numerous disputes and legal conflicts"; "In 1992, following the demolition of the structure, some critics contended that it presented a substantial challenge to the principles of Indian democracy." (The 2020-21 edition told the demolition of 6 December 1992 and the Liberhan Commission in detail; the current text keeps this sentence.) From legal proceedings to amicable acceptance: "in a multi-religious and multi-cultural democratic society, these conflicts are usually resolved following the due process of law"; through "court hearings, mediation attempts, popular movements, and finally with a 5-0 verdict of a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court on November 9, 2019, the Ayodhya issue was resolved." "The verdict allotted the disputed site to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust for the construction of Ram temple and directed the concerned government to allot appropriate site for the construction of a Mosque to the Sunni Central Waqf Board", "based on evidences such as archaeological excavations and historical records"; NCERT calls it "a classic example of consensus building on a sensitive issue". NCERT quotes the judgment: "At the heart of the Constitution is a commitment to equality upheld and enforced by the rule of law ... All forms of belief, worship and prayer are equal" (p. 920), and the conclusion on "faith and belief of Hindus since prior to construction of Mosque" (p. 1045).

Emergence of a New Consensus

The period after 1989 "is seen sometimes as the period of decline of Congress and rise of BJP"; to understand "the complex nature of political competition", compare the two parties' performances. NCERT's chart questions: how their fortunes changed from 1984; that since 1989 their votes "most of the time, add up to more than fifty per cent except in 1996, 2004 and 2009"; which parties belong to neither the Congress nor the Janata "family"; and which parties stood outside both coalitions in the nineties.

2004 to 2019. In 2004 "the Congress party too entered into coalitions in a big way": the NDA "was defeated and a new coalition government led by the Congress, known as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power", with Left Front support, and "a negligible difference between the votes polled by the Congress and its allies and the BJP and its allies." The UPA "completed its term despite Left parties withdrawing the support in July 2008 on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal" (the Left parties' letter of 8 July 2008; the confidence motion carried on 22 July). In 2009 the Congress rose "from 145 in 2004 to 206" and Manmohan Singh was sworn in "for the second term". The BJP "declared Narendra Modi (then the Chief Minister of Gujrat) as its Prime Ministerial candidate in September 2013" and "got a clear majority in 16th Lok Sabha elections held in 2014": 282 seats, "the first party to gain single party majority after 30 years"; "despite single-party majority of its own, BJP did choose to form the NDA government with its coalition partners." "Year 2014 was a proverbial watershed moment of Indian politics", with rapid decisions "in social sector, foreign policy and economic policy". In 2019 the BJP won "303 seats of its own"; "even when BJP is getting full majority, the recognition of coalition politics is still relevant. Thus, the party system has now changed almost dramatically from what it was till the seventies." (NCERT's text ends with 2019 and its tables with the 17th Lok Sabha; in the 18th Lok Sabha election of 2024 the BJP was again the largest party but short of a majority of its own and formed the government with its NDA partners.)

Growing consensus. "In the midst of severe competition and many conflicts, a consensus appears to have emerged among most parties", with four elements:

1. "Agreement on new economic policies": "while many groups are opposed to the new economic policies, most political parties are in support", believing they "would lead the country to prosperity and a status of economic power in the world." (GS2 2016 asked whether the governmental system has responded adequately to liberalisation since 1991.)
2. "Acceptance of the political and social claims of the backward castes": "all political parties now support reservation of seats for the 'backward classes' in education and employment" and "are also willing to ensure that the OBCs get adequate share of power."
3. "Acceptance of the role of State level parties in governance of the country": "the distinction between State level and national level parties is fast becoming less important"; State-level parties "are sharing power at the national level". (GS2 2022's statement that "national parties favor centralization whereas regional parties favor State autonomy" is tested against this element.)
4. "Emphasis on pragmatic considerations rather than ideological positions and political alliances without ideological agreement": "most parties of the NDA did not agree with the 'Hindutva' ideology of the BJP. Yet, they came together to form a government and remained in power for a full term."

"All these are momentous changes." From the Congress's dominance "we have now arrived at a more competitive politics, but politics that is based on a certain implicit agreement among the main political actors." At the same time "popular movements and organisations are simultaneously identifying new forms, visions and pathways of development", putting "poverty, displacement, minimum wages, livelihood and social security" on the agenda, and "issues of justice and democracy are being voiced by the people in terms of class, caste, gender and regions." NCERT's last word: "democratic politics is here to stay in India and that it will unfold through a continuous churning of some of the factors mentioned in this chapter."

Party Positions since 2004 (NCERT's table)

NCERT's note: 543 seats, "530 from States and 13 from UTs"; source, the Election Commission of India.

PART 3 — UPSC Integration

Three Frameworks

1. Five developments, four questions. Map each of NCERT's 1989-91 developments to the question it raises: the Congress's fall to coalition politics; Mandal to representation; Ayodhya to secularism and democracy; the reforms to the policy consensus; Rajiv Gandhi's death to the Congress's leadership.

2. Who supported whom, and why. 1989: BJP and Left outside the National Front "to keep the Congress out"; 1996: Congress and Left behind the United Front "to keep the BJP out"; 1998-2004: the NDA; 2004-14: the UPA with the Left to 2008. The pattern is NCERT's fourth consensus element in action.

3. Competition inside consensus. Severe competition (Congress vs BJP; Dalit vs OBC politics) within an implicit agreement on economic policy, backward-caste claims, State-level parties and pragmatism, with popular movements pressing from outside (chapter 7 of the 2020-21 book).

Confused Pairs

• National Front (1989; BJP and Left support) vs United Front (1996-98; Congress and Left support) vs NDA (1998-2004; 2014 onward) vs UPA (2004-14).
• Mandal Commission appointed (Janata, 1 January 1979) vs reported (31 December 1980) vs implemented (National Front, August 1990) vs upheld (Indra Sawhney, 16 November 1992).
• BAMCEF (1978) vs DS-4 vs BSP (1984); Dalit politics vs OBC politics.
• Shah Bano judgment (23 April 1985) vs the 1986 Act.
• The Faizabad district court's unlocking order (1 February 1986) vs the shilanyas vs the demolition (1992) vs the judgment (9 November 2019).
• "Gandhian Socialism" (BJP 1980-86) vs Hindutva (after 1986; Savarkar's pitrubhu and punyabhu).
• Single-party majority (2014, 2019) vs NDA government (both times, "with its coalition partners").

Exam Strategy

• Prelims: memorise the three tables; the five developments; the Mandal sequence; the four consensus elements; the 17th Lok Sabha figures.
• Mains: state NCERT's four questions and answer with its information; present Ayodhya as NCERT now does, through the due process of law and the 2019 directions; for coalitions, give the support arithmetic and the long-term explanation; for Mandal, separate appointment, report, implementation and judgment.
• Avoid: "415 seats in 1984" as the Commission's figure; filing Article 370's abrogation under 2014-19; MGNREGA or any scheme described as running after its repeal (MGNREGA was repealed from 1 July 2026 when the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025 came into force); partisan tables of "failures"; invented casualty counts for the Mandal agitation; the Rath Yatra's length or route without a record.
• Cross-reading: chapters 2 and 5 (the Congress system and its restoration), chapter 6 (the 1977 shift of the backward castes), chapter 7 (2020-21: movements and the "consensus"), Class XI Indian Constitution at Work chapters 2 and 9 (reservations, Indra Sawhney, the amendments) and the Class XII Indian Society ledger on Mandal.

Practice Questions

NCERT's exercises, worked

1. (d) Assassination of Indira Gandhi (31 October 1984); (b) formation of the Janata Dal (1988); (a) implementation of the Mandal recommendation (August 1990); (e) formation of the NDA government (March 1998, re-elected October 1999); (f) formation of the UPA government (May 2004); (c) Supreme Court judgment on the Ram Janmabhoomi (9 November 2019).
2. (a) Politics of consensus: iv, agreement on economic policies; (b) caste-based parties: ii, rise of OBCs; (c) personal law and gender justice: i, Shah Bano case; (d) growing strength of regional parties: iii, coalition government.
3. Issues: the decline of the Congress and coalition politics; Mandal and OBC representation; the new economic policy; Ayodhya and secularism; the rise of regional and Dalit parties. Configurations: the National Front with BJP and Left support (1989); the United Front with Congress and Left support (1996-98); the BJP-led coalition and the NDA (1998-2004); the UPA with the Left (2004-08); the NDA with a single-party majority inside it (2014, 2019).
4. Support: NCERT's fourth element (NDA partners who rejected Hindutva; the Congress supporting a Janata Dal-led front it had opposed in 1989; the Left and BJP together in 1989). Oppose: the alliances still followed a logic ("keep the Congress out", "keep the BJP out"), and the consensus elements themselves are positions, not an absence of ideology.
5. Jana Sangh in the Janata Party (1977); the BJP formed in 1980 with "Gandhian Socialism"; the 1984 setback; nationalism and Hindutva after 1986; Shah Bano and Ayodhya as central issues; 1989 (85 seats), 1991 and 1996 (largest party), 1998-99 coalitions, 1999 full term, 2014 and 2019 majorities.
6. Yes: it "ruled the country more than any other party even in this period since 1989" (1991-96, 2004-14), supported the United Front, led the UPA, and the "Congress family" of parties remains one pole of competition; its decline is of centrality, not of relevance.
7. Advantages, from NCERT: representation of Dalit, OBC and regional parties and their share of power; State-level parties in national governance; pragmatic alliances; competition within a consensus that keeps policy stable; movements with space to press new issues. Against the two-party ideal: NCERT's chart questions show that the two largest parties' votes often add up to more than half the total anyway.
8. (a) The Congress system "destroyed itself"; the fragmentation of its coalition brought "self-representation" by caste, region and community; the party system's capacity "to accommodate diverse interests" is in question. (b) Dalit and OBC politics "often in competition"; the regional parties that no national party could absorb; the exit of groups from the Congress since the late 1960s. (c) Because, as NCERT's chapter 7 says, single-issue and single-section politics leaves "a vacuum"; parties exist to aggregate interests into governable majorities and programmes.

Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers)

9. "The elections of 1989 marked the end of the Congress system, but not the rise of a new dominant party." Explain with the support arithmetic of the governments formed between 1989 and 2004. (GS2, 15 marks)
10. Trace the Mandal Commission from Karpoori Thakur's Bihar to Indra Sawhney. What does NCERT mean by saying the debate "made people from the OBC communities more aware of this identity"? (GS1, 10 marks)
11. Set out NCERT's four elements of the post-1989 consensus and test each against one event since 2014. (GS2, 15 marks)
12. "In a multi-religious and multi-cultural democratic society, conflicts are usually resolved following the due process of law." Discuss NCERT's account of the Ayodhya issue from the 1986 order to the judgment of 9 November 2019. (GS2, 10 marks)

📦 Revision Capsule

Sources

• NCERT, Politics in India Since Independence (Class XII), ch. 8 "Recent Developments in Indian Politics", Reprint 2026-27 (re-set March 2024): ncert.nic.in PDF; the 2020-21 edition for the earlier Ayodhya narrative: Wayback copy of 9 April 2022 of the whole-book zip.
• Prime Minister's Office, former Prime Ministers: V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 1996 and 1998-2004, H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral, Manmohan Singh.
• Election Commission of India, Statistical Report on General Elections, 1989, to the Ninth Lok Sabha, vol. I; the 1984 and 1985 reports: ECI statistical reports; ECI results portal.
• Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, Supreme Court, 16 November 1992: Indian Kanoon.
• Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, Supreme Court, 23 April 1985: Indian Kanoon; the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986: Indian Kanoon.
• M Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs v. Mahant Suresh Das, Supreme Court, 9 November 2019: Supreme Court PDF (NCERT cites the same path at main.sci.gov.in).
• Union of India v. V. Sriharan, Supreme Court, 2 December 2015 (the date and place of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination): Indian Kanoon.
• Ministry of External Affairs, India's Foreign Relations 2008 (documents): the Left parties' letter of 8 July 2008 and the confidence debate: MEA PDF.
• World Trade Organization, India and the WTO; Ministry of Finance, Economic Survey 2013-14, Statistical Appendix, Table 1.4: PDF.
• Press Information Bureau, backgrounder on the operationalisation of the VB-G RAM G Act, 11 May 2026 (MGNREGA repealed from 1 July 2026): PIB PDF.