Updated on: 2026-03-31 | Author: SSC Solutions Editorial Team
Political parties
When people come together and participate in the electoral process, to acquire political power, such organizations are called Political parties. It’s a social organization with a political ideology and agenda.
A national party is a political party that satisfies either of the following two conditions:
National parties are political parties that exist in democratic regimes; they are social organisations with the goal of gaining political power.
It secures a minimum of 6% of the valid votes in four or more states in the earlier Lok Sabha or State Assembly elections.
A minimum of 4 members should be elected in the Loksabha from any state or state in the earlier elections.
The candidates of a party should be elected from a minimum of 2% of constituencies out of the total Loksabha constituencies (543).
The candidates should be selected from at least 3 states.
Some of the national parties in India are the Indian National Congress, the Communist Party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Nationalist Congress Party, and All India Trinamool Congress Party.
Regionalism arises when the feeling of affinity develops for a language and region, gradually becoming an identity consciousness.
Here, people mainly think about the interests and development of their region and believe that they should have a claim over their area's resources and employment opportunities.
Due to this, they feel proud of their language, literature, traditions, history of social reforms, and educational and cultural movements. This leads to the development of a 'linguistic identity'.
When such linguistic, regional, cultural and other identities connect, a strong feeling emerges: ' regional consciousness'.
This sometimes leads to independent political parties, pressure groups, or movements.
It is important to preserve our rich heritage for the benefit of both the present and future generations.
The method of history proves to be useful in order to carry out research in the following fields
i. Science:
In order to understand the chronological order of scientific discoveries, inventions and theories, it is essential to know the history of Science.
History thus lets one understand the cause – effect chain that led to those discoveries and inventions and facilitates more such discoveries.
ii. Arts:
It is important to understand the development of various art forms and their foundation in the form of intellectual-emotional-cultural traditions.
With the help of cultural history, we can understand the key to the expression in any art forms, emotional temperament of the artist and the developmental history of the respective art form.
iii. Management Studies:
Management Studies includes the study of various factors involved in the chain of production like the means of production, human resources, processes of production, the chain of market & sales management, etc. In order to understand these factors, it is necessary to have the knowledge of the similar functional systems of the past.
The psychological character of people working at various levels in the chain of production and marketing is dependent on the understanding of the social and economic institutions that support the industrial and commercial processes.
National Conference is a party in Jammu and Kashmir State.
This statement is false.
Explanation:
Coalition politics can lead to stability. Since many stakeholders are in power, coalition governments have proved to be success stories of the democratic political processes in our country.
True.
Reason: Political parties act as a link between government and people. They communicate the demands and the complaints of the people to their elected representatives in the government. The government, on the other hand, tries to get the support of the people for its policies through the political parties.
History gives us a chronological, scientific, and systematic account of past events while material sources (e.g., monuments, caves, etc.) written sources (e.g., travelogues, inscriptions, etc.), and oral sources (e.g., folk songs, powadas, etc.) help in the reconstruction of past history. Following are some of the solutions which can help in the preservation of the sources of history:
Having a sense of belongingness towards the various art forms, customs, traditions, paintings, monuments, etc., created by our ancestors is the most important thing which is needed for the preservation of sources of history. One can develop this sense of belongingness by knowing the historical significance of various sources.
While visiting any historical site, one should abide by the rules and regulations laid down by the organizations or institutes (for e.g., The Archaeological Survey of India or INTACH) which take care of those sites.
An unbiased approach to the writing of history will enable preserving the authenticity of historical events.
Certain oral sources of history, like folk songs, owis, powadas, etc., should be collected and preserved.
Certain written sources of history should be reprinted so that they can be used in the future for research.
Certain photographs or audio-video cassettes, with the help of new technology, should be recovered so that they can be used as a source of history.
Efforts should be taken to learn the ancient extinct scripts like Brahmi and Modi, in order to enable one to reconstruct the history of our past.
‘Heritage Walks’ should be organized regularly.
Through the medium of speeches, discussions, and street play; the common people should be made aware.
In order to create awareness among teachers and students in schools and colleges, a ‘heritage club’ should be established. Also, awareness workshops should be conducted for them.
When people form organizations with the objective of achieving political power and participate in the electoral process, such organizations are called political parties.
The major characteristics of political parties are:
To attain power - It is the main objective of all political parties. They compete with each other for the same; there is nothing wrong with the objective of gaining power as long as the competition is fair.
To pursue an ideology - A party’s stand on certain social issues defines its ideology. In modern times, most political parties have similar ideologies which make it difficult for the common voter to decide whom to support.
To have a common agenda - On the basis of their ideologies, parties prepare their agendas. They aim to garner public support for their agenda in order to win elections and implement them.
To establish a government - The political party which gets the majority of votes in the elections forms the government; the parties with lesser votes form the opposition.
To act as a link between people & the government. - Political parties are the connecting link between people and the government. They communicate the demands and the complaints of the people to the elected leaders and on the other hand, the government tries to get the support of the people for its policies and programs through the channel of political parties.
Three major phases that have marked the changing nature of political parties in India are:
The single dominant party system: After independence, Congress was the single most powerful political party in the country. It had government, both the center and most regional states, for a long time.
The challenge to the Single dominant party system: In 1977, in the spirit of democracy, the non-Congress parties came together to challenge the single-party dominance. Congress lost elections at the center owing to the anti-decentralization policies of Indira Gandhi followed during the emergency years (1975-77), and various regional parties took this opportunity to mark their foothold in regional politics.