ABSTRACT
India held its ninth general election in 1989, and it failed to produce a majority government. Although India's premier political party, the Congress, remains the single largest group in parliament, its control of 197 of the 545 seats was insufficient to enable it to form a government, Instead, the second-largest group in parliament, the National Front, formed India's first minority government in four decades. The election and related political issues will dominate any attempt to make sense of Indian politics in 1989. Although the Congress Party has been India's ruling party for most of the past 40 years, electoral victories since 1967 have not come easily. As the major nationalist party, the party that had led a successful struggle against British colonialism, the Congress was India's "natural" ruling party in the 1950s. The spread of democratic ideas and competitive politics has over time helped transform the acquiescence of lower social groups into political activism in many parts of India.
