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www.GOALias.blogspot.comEra of One-party Dominance 35Nature of Congress dominanceIndia is not the only country to have experienced thedominance of one party. If we look around the world,we find many other examples of one-party dominance.But there is a crucial difference between these andthe Indian experience. In the rest of the cases thedominance of one party was ensured by compromisingdemocracy. In some countries like China, Cuba andSyria the constitution permits only a single party torule the country. Some others like Myanmar, Belarus,Egypt, and Eritrea are effectively one-party states dueto legal and military measures. Until a few years ago,Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan were also effectivelyone-party dominant states. What distinguished the dominance of theCongress party in India from all these cases was it happened underdemocratic conditions. Many parties contested elections in conditionsof free and fair elections and yet the Congress managed to win electionafter election. This was similar to the dominance the African NationalCongress has enjoyed in South Africa after the end of apartheid.Founded in 1929, as NationalRevolutionary Party and later renamedas the Institutional RevolutionaryParty, the PRI (in Spanish), exercisedpower in Mexico for almost sixdecades. It represented the legacyof the Mexican revolution. OriginallyPRI was a mixture of various interestsincluding political and military leaders, labour and peasantorganisations and numerous political parties. Over a periodof time, Plutarco Elías Calles, the founder of PRI, was ableto capture the organisation and thereby the government.Elections were held at regular intervals and it was thePRI which won every time. Other parties existed in nameonly so as to give the ruling party greater legitimacy. Theelectoral laws were operated in a manner so as to ensurethat the PRI always won. Elections were often rigged andmanipulated by the ruling party. Its rule was describedas ‘the perfect dictatorship’. Finally the party lost in thePresidential elections held in 2000. Mexico is no longera one-party dominated country. But the tactics adoptedby the PRI during the period of its dominance had a longtermeffect on the health of democracy. The citizens haveyet to develop full confidence in the free and fair natureof elections.Babasaheb Bhimrao RamjiAmbedkar (1891-1956): Leader ofthe anti-caste movement and thestruggle for justice to the Dalits;scholar and intellectual; founderof Independent Labour Party; laterfounded the Scheduled CastesFederation; planned the formationof the Republican Party of India;Member of Viceroy’s ExecutiveCouncil during the SecondWorld War; Chairman, DraftingCommittee of the ConstituentAssembly; Minister in Nehru’sfirst cabinet after Independence;resigned in 1951 due to differencesover the Hindu Code Bill; adoptedBuddhism in 1956, with thousandsof followers.