Open access to political parties, which strengthens the democratisation process in a country, has declined in India during the last few decades. The contributing factors to this transformation are the personalisation of leadership based on family, kinship or primordial identities, lack of open membership or democratic decision-making within a party, unusually high cost of electioneering in contemporary times preventing average citizens from taking the plunge into party politics, and parties moving away from a culture of service to that of rent-seeking groups, whether in power or in opposition.
