ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship of partisanship with social cleavages, efficacy, trust and the major value conflicts in contemporary India, based on a national opinion survey from 1971-2004. Multi-party democracy in India exhibits a level of resilience comparable to Western liberal democracies though her magnitude of partisanship, considered by many to be a central feature of a functioning democracy tends to be below the level of Western democracies. The attempt to reverse the historical causality between the sequences of industrialisation, secularisation, regional integration and industrialisation led subsequently to the development of the institutions of liberal democracy such as parties and elections with universal adult franchise. From electoral data and results of opinion surveys, multi-party democracy appears to have struck roots in India. The local and regional breakdown of democracy is not unusual in many post-colonial and post-revolutionary countries.
