Dissent, Fragmentation & Hope

In a country like India, where opposition has become inconsequential, it is important to revisit the history of opposition to draw valuable lessons. Even more important is locating the current role of the opposition, redefining it, and brainstorming how it could be strengthened. It essentially is a mechanism for exacting accountability; it holds the executive to account and acts as a political alternative. In the constituent assembly, Ambedkar had called opposition “a condition precedent for the successful working of democracy.” It acts as a veto on the decisions of the ruling party, thereby preventing anything that might go haywire. However, the current oppositional crisis merits asking several questions, including why it is in crisis, how it could be reinvigorated, and redefining its role, with new challenges having emerged.

Amidst the crisis, Making of the Parliamentary Opposition in India is a meaningful intervention that has tried to redefine how we view the opposition. In an era increasingly defined by the crisis of liberal democratic institutions and the erosion of dissent, Rupak Kumar’s Making of the Parliamentary Opposition in India emerges as a work of critical necessity. What makes this book compelling is not just its ambitious archival engagement or its structured historical layout — it is its unapologetic normative stance. This is a book that does not seek comfort in institutional platitudes. Rather, it challenges dominant narratives, scrutinises power with intellectual honesty, and revives a long-neglected conversation on what it means to oppose meaningfully in a democracy. The author has divided the historical trajectory of the opposition into four broad phases, starting with the formative years of the opposition(1952-1966), when there was a huge mismatch between the idea of having a robust opposition and the steps that were undertaken by the ruling party. It reminds us about the negative role of asymmetric conditions when the congress had a strong organisational presence and economic clout. The second phase (1967-84) was the period of transition and experiment, depicting the opposition’s resilience, when the Janata party defeated the congress. The third phase witnessed the consolidation of the opposition (1985-1998), with the broadening of political mobilisation and participation. It parallelly saw the rise of coalition politics and the consequent decline of the Congress Party. The fourth phase (1999-2014) is where we witnessed the fragmentation, as they were unable to expand their social base because of the rise of identity politics and lack of an alternative political discourse. What is distinctive about the work is how the quest for representational assertion in India led to both the strengthening of the opposition as well as its fragmentation.

He recognises that fragmentation is not merely a political failure — it is symptomatic of India’s complex social cleavages. His engagement with the representational assertion of backward and marginalised castes is appreciable. The book does not instrumentalise this moment of assertion; rather, it sees it as the “second democratic upsurge,” echoing Yogendra Yadav’s argument that the 1990s marked not a breakdown, but a deepening of Indian democracy. In fact, Kumar’s engagement with caste-based assertion does what most institutionalist literature fails to do — it recognises that representation is not the enemy of accountability. On the contrary, it is its prerequisite.

This book is strongest when it ties together these different lenses — historical, institutional, and normative — to illuminate the paradoxes of India’s political development. One example is his refusal to treat the opposition as a monolith. While many studies focus on opposition versus government dynamics, Kumar turns his gaze inward and critiques the opposition’s internal contradictions — its ideological incoherence, programmatic fragility, and the transactional alliances it has often relied upon. His treatment of the Janata Party experiment is emblematic of this honesty: it was born of necessity, not coherence; it dissolved not from external repression, but from internal disarray. The originality of the work lies in moving beyond the Congress-versus-rest narrative and exploring how real opposition often existed outside Parliament — in movements, civil society, and individual voices who refused to be co-opted. In doing so, he indirectly touches on what William Selinger, in Parliamentarism: From Burke to Weber, calls the “moral basis of opposition”—that” dissent is not always about seizing power but about shaping public reason. Kumar’s inclusion of unconventional oppositional forms — NGOs, media, and constitutional protests — is not only inclusive but epistemologically radical. It challenges our understanding of where democracy actually lives. What is particularly powerful is Kumar’s framing of opposition as both a democratic necessity and a governance imperative. This dual framing is not rhetorical. It brings much-needed theoretical weight to the debate. The governance imperative — the idea that opposition is central to accountability, answerability, and transparency — corrects the widespread misconception that political opposition merely performs symbolic resistance. Kumar’s insistence that the opposition must offer alternatives, not just criticisms, mirrors Levitsky and Ziblatt’s concern with “constitutional retrogression” — the” slow erosion of democratic norms through incremental attacks on institutional checks. India, as Kumar suggests, is not immune.

We find ourselves in agreement with Kumar when he dissects the early post-independence period, and especially when he critiques the Nehruvian legacy. Too often, scholarship on Indian democracy has romanticised Nehru’s leadership, ignoring the profound structural imbalances seeded during his tenure. Rajni Kothari’s “Congress system,” for instance, while hailed as an indigenous democratic innovation, effectively insulated the ruling party from genuine contestation. Kumar does well to interrogate this. He moves beyond Kothari’s institutional optimism and calls attention to the systemic marginalisation of oppositional energies within a quasi-monopoly of power. In doing so, he reasserts a fundamental truth: opposition is not a peripheral irritant in democracy; it is its litmus test.

This reading is refreshingly aligned with Robert Dahl’s foundational idea that opposition is not merely tolerated in a democracy — it is essential to democratic representation. Kumar’s work reminds us that the architecture of democracy collapses when dissent is seen as destabilising rather than essential. Indeed, as Sartori observed, “the opposition’s right to oppose is not a procedural allowance, but the soul of pluralism.” In this context, the book’s attention to the Emergency becomes more than historical record-keeping — it becomes a political warning. When Kumar discusses the demonisation of the opposition during Indira Gandhi’s regime and the chilling use of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), it reads as a cautionary echo of the present. The parallels with contemporary anxieties — the delegitimisation of protest, the caricaturing of critics as anti-national — are impossible to ignore. In invoking Rajni Kothari’s description of the Emergency as a “suspension of the political process,” Kumar takes a stand. And we agree with him: it is not merely the act of imposing authoritarian rule that damages democracy, but the normalisation of its logic.

There are moments where Kumar could have pushed the critique further. For example, while he rightly criticises the opposition’s failure to build enduring ideological consensus, he could have offered deeper reflections on the structural impediments to such unity — such as the first-past-the-post system, electoral funding disparities, and media centralisation. Here, sources like König, Lin, and Silva’s 2023 study on “government dominance and opposition function” could have expanded the analytical lens. Their findings, that institutional dominance can hollow out oppositional effectiveness even in formally competitive systems, would have strengthened Kumar’s thesis. The author critiques Rajni Kothari’s “Congress System” model as exaggerating internal conflicts within the Congress and downplaying the reasons for a weak opposition. While Kothari’s model has limitations, it did capture a significant aspect of Indian politics for a time. Internal diversity within Congress was crucial for its success.

The author rightly captures the role of having “equality of conditions” for an effective opposition. The Notion of “Equality of Conditions” for the Opposition: Absolute equality of conditions is unrealistic. The ruling party inherently has advantages (access to resources, media, etc.) While opposition parties contest elections, electoral data reveals deep structural biases. According to ADR, 70% of political donations (via electoral bonds) went to the ruling BJP, creating a massive funding gap. Media coverage is heavily skewed in favour of the ruling party, reducing opposition visibility. Investigative agencies disproportionately target opposition leaders before elections, creating a climate of fear. The Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) is often weaponised to disempower opposition governments. While seats may change, the conditions of contest — finance, media, and institutional control — are deeply unequal, undermining the principle of a level playing field in India’s electoral democracy. Elaborating on how, with a barrage of oddities, in the face of several obstacles, the opposition could strengthen itself could have made it realistic and appealing.

What makes it highly relevant is exposing the present crisis of the opposition. He calls it the “Double Whammy” for the crisis. Firstly, the crisis inside political parties — weak organisational strength, ideological crisis, and lack of an effective political alternative. Secondly, operating at the external level, relating to the role of the ruling party that it has played — marginalisation of democratic space, media narrative, propaganda, and ruling party hegemony at large.

In sum, this is a book that asks us to think politically — not just historically or legally — about opposition. It asks what it means to contest, to dissent, to demand, and to imagine alternatives. It refuses to reduce opposition to electoral arithmetic or legislative numbers. It insists on its moral, constitutional, and political necessity.

Azher Ahmad Dar is a student at the University of Delhi. Maleeha is a postgraduate student of political science with keen interest in democracy, oppositional politics, and institutional reforms. Views expressed are personal