Presidential v/s Parliamentary Form of Government in India

In my opinion, both parliamentary and presidential systems have their own merits and demerits. If we look in the parliamentary system then the best thing is that no one is the boss of the whole system and the decisions are always taken by the group of representatives. So, this is the merit of the parliament system but in the presidential system, all the power is in the hand of the president and he is solely responsible for taking all the decisions and he can take the decisions without any permission or majority and this might lead to dictatorship. Now, you may give the example that America has the presidential form of the government and they are success but I would like to mention a very important point and that is.America is success not because of their government, I think they are success because of their judicial system; they are success because of their law and order system. And history says that presidential forms of democracies have been misused and transformed to dictatorship. For ex: Egypt, Afghanistan, Syria, Russia and many countries. But In a parliamentary form, it is absolutely difficult to transform, though. So, I would like to conclude with this that if we can remove corruption, enforce law and order strictly and hold the government and its officials accountable then parliament form is the best a form of the government.

India truly needs a presidential form of government. Today, our problems lie in the very roots of parliamentary democracy. For example, the Prime Minister's power is extremely limited because he/she needs the approval from the president and above all the parliament. If the parliament is not happy with the Prime Minister, it has the power to hold the confidence motion. Also, the Prime Minister needs to form a coalition with other regional parties to stay in power, meaning the Prime Mister must keep everyone in his/her coalition happy.

Furthermore, some people in this blog have been criticizing the presidential form of government because too much power is vested in one person and that the Presidential system DOES NOT represent different castes and religions (no representation).

To those who say that presidential system leads to an unequal representation of the people, you are mistaken. Today, the people DOES NOT ELECT the Prime Minister but we the people elect the party. The party then chooses the Prime Minister. Bottom line, the Prime Minister is not held accountable when reelections come or during any elections within the states.

Why do have criminals within the state assemblies and the Parliament? This is the reason. If the criminal runs for office, a rational person would not vote for this criminal. However, like I said before we the people in a parliamentary form of government elect the party, the party then chooses a candidate to hold office regardless of a background check.

India needs a President who can execute power without the thereat from parliament and the party. What I mean by this is that we need a leader who is elected for a fixed term of 5 years.

In conclusion, I agree with some posts that a democracy must represent its people. Perhaps no system in history represents the people more that the parliamentary form of government. However, Indian politicians DO NOT represent the people rather they are in office for their own self-interests. To add insult to injury, our country suffers from illiteracy, which makes it extremely tough for the people to understand and ultimate take charge of the situation.

I don't think any government form will create any impact on peoples in India. We have to make some changes in ourselves. America has a Presidential form of govt. But they are successive not due to the form of govt. They have but because of its judicial system, law and order and almost no corruption. If we can remove corruption, enforce law and order and hold the government and its officials accountable, our system will work. These are the root cause of the problems that we have in this country.

In my opinion both parliamentary and presidential government are good but that depends upon the state in which it has to be enacted.

Talking about India we have diversity of religion culture, different peoples and different classes. Parliamentary government distributes the power among the political parties in different states. Thus this makes possible to put forward the issues of respective religion/classes by their respective representative.

In country like India president alone can not sort out the problem of each and every state/peoples because there are also many works to do besides that like foreign relation maintenance etc.

But least we can do is to make mixed government just like France keeping both president as well as prime minister in power. This can really help India to boost its progress.

This is the best solution I can come with.

Thank you.

1. In the Parliamentary form of government, there are two heads. One is a nominal head while another is the real head. For example, in India, the President is the nominal head while the Prime Minister is the real head. The President of India is the head of state while the Prime Minister is the head of government. But in the Presidential form of government, there is only one head. The President of America is the head of state as well as the head of government.

2. In the Parliamentary system, the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister is responsible to the legislature. But in the Presidential type, the President and his ministers are not responsible to the legislature.

3. In the Parliamentary type, the Council of Ministers will lose office if it loses the vote of confidence / no confidence. But in the Presidential type, the President cannot be ousted from power by a vote of no-confidence. He can be removed from office though impeachment which is much more difficult than the vote of confidence/no confidence.

4. In the Parliamentary system, the government does not enjoy a fixed tenure. "For example, in India the government can stay in power for five years. But any time during this period, the government can be removed from power through a vote of no-confidence. In the Presidential system, the President has generally a fixed tenure because it is not easy to impeach him.

5. There is not strict separation of powers in the Parliamentary type. The ministers are also members of the legislature. But, in the Presidential type, the principle of separation of powers is strictly followed. In the US, the President and his Ministers (Secretaries) are not members of the Congress.

6. In the Parliamentary system, the Prime Minister is not fully free to choose his ministers. He has to choose them from among the members of Parliament. But in the Presidential system, the President enjoys much more freedom in selecting his ministers. He selects them from a much wider field taking into account their experience and expertise.

7. At the time of crisis the Presidential executive is more successful in taking prompt and bold decisions than the Parliamentary government.

8. The Presidential system of government provides more political stability than the Parliamentary form of government.

9. As the government in the parliamentary system is responsible to the Parliament, it is more democratic and respectful of public opinion than the Presidential executive which is not responsible to the legislature.

India is developing not because of the political system. India is developing in-spite of the political system. With proper and accountable form of governance, India could have by now reached a super power status given the resources and the abilities of the people.

India experimented with parliamentary system of democracy, copied largely from UK. Unfortunately it has not worked for India. India as a nation is deeply divided into several groups with conflicting interests. Indian democracy in practice has not been able to abolish caste system that divides the majority community into groups with conflicting interests despite many laws. Accountability is the major causality in the Indian style of democracy.

The Political parties often give importance to the winning chances based on the group and caste following a candidate has. Even in cabinet formation, caste plays its role, many times in the formation of Cabinet. Caste and communal divide made India into one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Some credible estimates put the annual corruption at 50 Billion dollars.

To fight the twin causes of corruption and caste, may be India need to debate on a presidential form of government on the US model. A strong executive President does not need the support of caste and communal vote banks. He can go ahead with reforms that make the administration more transparent, less corrupt and more account to the citizens and the nation. A powerful and committed, and accountable administration is the need of the hour.

I favour the parliamentary form of democracy, through and through. History says that most presidential forms of democracies have been misused and abused to become dictatorship. In a parliamentary form, it is absolutely difficult to transform though. Given the nature of our politicians, presidential form of democracy will be disastrous. Parliament stops that single person from abusing power. Just look at Egypt, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Russia and many many countries. Even though there might be policy paralysis and inaction's, always, and always, a parliamentary system means stability. Presidential system works only when there is less diversity and the people are more homogeneous and speak more or less the same language. It will fail in India. India should essentially remain a parliamentary democracy.

I agree parliamentary because the reason for this is that, unlike the presidential system parliamentary system have a built -in the mechanism that allows for the easy removal of a lousy leader, who can be removed by easily in three legal ways (1) vote of confidence. (2) removal by the party. (3) removal by the hand of the state.

As for me parliamentary form of government should be in India. Actually India is one of the biggest democracy country. Here people want to express their feelings without any objection. So we need Parliamentary type of gvt. In this country having 1000 of religions. , and also it is 2nd biggest nation in population. If presidential is formed here. , all peoples are losses their identity. They work to that president only. What he say they should that thing only.

For example: In Hitler time their people losses their identity and they are slaves for him. There is no their won cultural events for them.

India having 1000 of different religion and different type of festival. If India also followed presidential form human beings losses their identity.

For me both parliamentary and presidential system have their own merits and demerits. If we look in the parliamentary system then the good thing is that there is no one is a single boss of the whole system.

Because the decisions are taken for the country people and that should be taken bay the group of people selected by the people of the country for their rights and religion issue. While on the other side of this is that every time all of them are not agree on the same point every one have their own opinion and they can conflict each other opinion. This may lead delay in some important decisions or may be need to neglect the decision completely.

On the presidential system all the power is in the hand of one person and he is responsible for taking all the decision and he can take decision without any permission or majority. That will remove all the demerits of the previously discussed system. But this system is good for those area where the peoples are of one religion or a large majority of that.

But not for the country like India because there are almost all the religions people and almost 1000 and above casts. Single person will be of single religion or cast may be it is possible that he is very good to take decisions for the country and is above these all things like casts and religions but he can't generate faith in all the religion.

So for me Presidential can be good for the country like USA but not for our country. Yes this system lead delay in the decisions but we can't avoid the importance of involving all in the decision.