The King’s Party Problem

In India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, elections are noisy, political loyalties are intense and parties command enormous popular followings. Yet beneath the differences between the three countries sits a recurring pattern. Political parties do not merely compete to govern the state. They frequently seek to possess it. Once a party acquires power, the boundary between party, leader and state can become dangerously thin.

In Pakistan, this problem has a name: the “king’s party”. The expression is most closely associated with parties assembled or favoured by the military establishment to provide an electoral and civilian face to an existing centre of power. The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, or PML-Q, which backed General Pervez Musharraf and governed after the 2002 election, became the textbook example.

Used more broadly, however, the term captures something found across the subcontinent: parties whose political strength depends not only on voters or ideology but on proximity to the machinery of state, powerful families, security institutions, bureaucracy, business networks and patronage. In that wider sense, South Asian politics has repeatedly produced parties that begin as movements and end as establishments, or parties created by establishments that later acquire genuine constituencies of their own.

Not every successful party is literally created by a powerful patron. India’s Congress emerged from an anti-colonial mass movement, the Awami League became the principal vehicle of Bengali nationalism before Bangladesh existed, and Pakistan’s PPP developed a real popular base. Yet a party’s origins cannot excuse what it later does with power. Movements built around national liberation can also become structures of personal rule, coercion and privileged access to the state. [2, 13, 18]

But the larger diagnosis remains worth taking seriously. Across all three countries, political systems have struggled to make institutions more important than personalities. The result is a politics in which the central question is often not simply who wins an election, but who controls the state once the election is over.

What exactly is a “king’s party”?

The phrase should be used with care. In Pakistan it has a relatively precise meaning: a party favoured by the prevailing military establishment. The PML-Q emerged after the split in the Pakistan Muslim League following General Pervez Musharraf’s coup, and helped give his rule a parliamentary form. A 2008 study by the National University of Singapore documents this regime-party relationship. [1]

There is no exact equivalent in India, where the military has remained outside direct national government, or in Bangladesh, where the armed forces have intervened but have not exercised the same continuous political role as Pakistan’s military. The useful comparison is therefore not institutional identity but political function.

A party of power tends to display several characteristics. It attracts politicians because it appears likely to govern. It uses access to appointments, contracts, development spending and administrative influence to reinforce loyalty. It is organised around a leader or family more than around internal procedures. Defection into the ruling camp becomes rational for ambitious politicians. The state’s coercive and regulatory institutions, even when formally independent, may come under pressure to distinguish between allies and opponents.

This is why the king’s-party idea is more illuminating as a spectrum than as a label. Some parties are created from above. Others are authentic mass organisations that, after years in power, absorb the habits of a party-state.

India: from the Congress system to a new dominant party

India is the clearest reason not to stretch the term too far. The Indian National Congress was not created by a post-independence state to legitimise an existing ruler. It predated independence by more than six decades and became the principal organisation of the anti-colonial movement. Yet once independence arrived, Congress occupied an extraordinary position at the centre of political life. [2]

Rajni Kothari famously described the early order as the “Congress system”: a form of dominant-party politics in which Congress was sufficiently broad to contain ideological and regional conflicts that, elsewhere, might have been contested between rival parties. Elections remained meaningful, but Congress was the centre around which much of national politics revolved. [2]

That dominance gradually altered the party itself. Under Indira Gandhi, especially after the split of 1969, Congress became more centralised and increasingly dependent on the authority of a single leader. The Emergency of 1975 to 1977 represented the most severe breakdown of India’s post-independence democratic order. Civil liberties were restricted, opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. [2]

Yet 1977 also demonstrated something essential about Indian democracy. Voters removed Congress. The newly formed Janata Party, a coalition of anti-Emergency forces, won the election and Morarji Desai became India’s first non-Congress prime minister. The government soon fractured, but the transfer of power disproves the idea that only state-sponsored parties could reach office. [2]

The BJP represents a different route to dominance. Its origins lie in the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, founded in 1951, and the wider organisational network of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The BJP itself was formed in 1980. It was not manufactured by an incumbent state, and spent decades developing a cadre organisation, electoral base and governing experience before becoming the leading national party. [3]

Gandhi’s assassination and a movement’s ideological ancestry

The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948 raises a separate question about the struggle over India’s founding political ideals. Gandhi was murdered by Nathuram Godse, who was associated with the Hindu Mahasabha and had links to the RSS. Historians have disagreed over the timing and extent of Godse’s continued RSS membership, although recent archival research has questioned claims that he had severed those connections before the killing. [4, 5]

It would be historically wrong to call Godse a BJP member: the BJP did not exist until 1980, and the assassination was not an attempted BJP takeover of the government. Godse’s act was, however, an extreme instance of an ideological rejection of Gandhi’s approach to the Indian nation. The later rise of Hindu-nationalist politics through the Jana Sangh, RSS and BJP belongs in that wider contest over the meaning of the republic. The link is ideological and historical, not evidence that the present BJP organised or bears criminal responsibility for the 1948 murder. [3, 4, 5]

Outsider status does not permanently insulate a party from the habits of an establishment. The BJP’s ascent has prompted renewed debate about executive centralisation, the boundary between party organisation and public institutions, and whether national political identity can become too closely associated with the party in office. The BJP continues to face parliamentary opposition and, after the 2024 general election, governed through a coalition rather than a single-party majority. These realities are part of the account, even as concerns about unequal access to state power remain. [3, 20]

When the party in government becomes the gatekeeper of capital

The relationship between business and political authority is particularly important in this debate. India’s Supreme Court declared the electoral-bonds funding scheme unconstitutional in February 2024 because its secrecy violated citizens’ right to information. Subsequent disclosures showed that the BJP had received more electoral-bond funding than any other party. The court’s decision established a serious flaw in political-finance rules; it did not, by itself, establish that every large donor bought a government favour. [6, 7]

The Adani Group has become central to allegations that politically connected businesses enjoy disproportionate access to public opportunities. Opposition politicians have accused the Modi government of favouring Gautam Adani, while a US indictment in November 2024 alleged a bribery scheme involving Indian solar-power contracts. The Adani Group denied the charges, and the BJP rejected the suggestion that it had a duty to defend the company. These are material allegations requiring scrutiny, not settled findings that the Indian government unlawfully awarded contracts. [8, 21]

Earlier allegations concerning Adani companies’ shareholding and market conduct likewise prompted a regulatory investigation. In January 2024 India’s Supreme Court declined to order a separate court-supervised inquiry beyond the securities regulator’s investigation. That decision is important: scepticism about political favouritism can be justified without presenting every accusation as an established offence. [9]

The broader issue is structural. Where the same governing party enjoys exceptional fundraising advantages, its leadership controls appointments and businesses perceive proximity to ministers as commercially valuable, an entrenched network of influence can develop. It is different from a hereditary family dynasty, but it can resemble a court: access to the ruler becomes an asset in itself. The concern is not that all business-government cooperation is corrupt; it is whether equal rules apply to political allies and outsiders alike. [6, 7, 20]

India therefore presents two distinct forms of party dominance. Congress cultivated a broad ruling-party system that later became increasingly personalised, while the BJP grew from a long-standing ideological and social movement into national power. Neither story is adequately explained as a military-sponsored “king’s party”. The comparison becomes useful when it asks how funding, influence, political narratives and state institutions are distributed around whichever party holds office. [2, 3, 20]

“The illness is not that South Asian voters cannot remove governments. They repeatedly have. It is that the state is still too often treated as the prize of politics rather than the impartial framework within which politics takes place.”

Pakistan: where the “king” has often been visible

Pakistan offers a distinctive form of the king’s-party problem because the figure most capable of deciding the boundaries of civilian politics has often been the serving army chief. Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf exercised power through military governments; even in periods of elected administration, the armed forces have retained exceptional influence over security, foreign policy and political transitions. In this analytical sense, Pakistan’s recurring “king” has frequently been the leadership of the army rather than the leader of the party holding a parliamentary majority. [1, 23]

The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) under Musharraf is the classic example of a party favoured by the military establishment. Yet the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) developed substantial electoral constituencies of their own. The PPP retained strong support in Sindh, while the PML-N established a durable base in Punjab and repeatedly came into conflict with army leaders. This makes military influence important without rendering civilian party politics fictitious or every election outcome predetermined. [1, 23]

The relationship is better understood as a shifting bargain. Army chiefs and senior commanders have at different times supported, accommodated or opposed civilian leaders; political parties have sought military backing when advantageous and resisted military interference when it threatened their authority. The institution exercises leverage beyond the ballot box, while elected politicians remain responsible for their own choices in office. The metaphor of a “king” therefore describes the unusually powerful position occupied by military leadership, not a claim that one individual has controlled every decision since independence. [1, 11, 23]

Imran Khan and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) illustrate how quickly the arrangement can reverse. Founded in 1996, PTI developed an anti-corruption and anti-dynastic message and a substantial popular following. Khan’s accession to office after the 2018 election reflected genuine electoral support, but the contest was also accompanied by widespread allegations that the military establishment had tilted the pre-election environment against the PML-N and other rivals. This was not simply a government installed without voters; it was a popular movement operating within an unequal political system. [10, 23]

Khan’s relationship with military leaders later deteriorated. He was removed by a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022, a constitutional process whose political background remains contested. Khan has blamed the military establishment for his removal, while the army has denied engineering his exclusion from politics. His arrest in 2023 sparked demonstrations, some of which involved attacks on military sites; the authorities subsequently carried out a broad crackdown, including arrests of PTI members and trials of some civilians in military courts. Violent offences require investigation, but human rights organisations have also documented serious restrictions on peaceful opposition activity and due process. [11, 23, 25]

The February 2024 election exposed the distinction between popular support and access to the state. Despite Khan’s imprisonment and restrictions on PTI, independent candidates supported by his party won the largest number of directly elected National Assembly seats, although not a majority. The PML-N and PPP subsequently formed the federal government. International observers and human rights organisations raised concerns about restrictions on political activity, mobile communications and the integrity of the process. PTI’s votes could not simply be wished away, but its electoral strength did not translate into control of the federal executive. [24, 25]

As of October 2026, Khan remained in prison. He has faced more than 100 legal cases, and several earlier convictions have been overturned or suspended, while other convictions and appeals remain active; he denies wrongdoing. His supporters regard the prosecutions as politically motivated, whereas the authorities dispute that characterisation. In early October 2026, thousands of PTI supporters began another march demanding his release, underlining his continued popular significance despite his absence from electoral office. [12, 26]

Meanwhile, the military leadership’s formal authority has expanded. Constitutional changes adopted in November 2025 elevated Field Marshal Asim Munir to a new Chief of Defence Forces role, concentrating command across the armed services and providing lifetime legal immunity for the office-holder after his term. In October 2026, Reuters reported that major overseas defence commitments were being pursued without substantive parliamentary involvement, illustrating how the division between military command and civilian oversight remains a live constitutional issue. [27, 28]

The point is not that Pakistan lacks genuine parties or that every army chief has exercised identical influence. It is that an institution capable of shaping the permissible limits of political competition can outlast parties, governments and prime ministers. Khan’s movement, at first perceived as enjoying establishment favour and later treated by the authorities as a challenge, demonstrates why the question of who can make and unmake a government matters as much as who wins votes. [23, 24, 27]

Bangladesh: parties born from both movements and regimes

Bangladesh combines both forms of party politics. The Awami League, founded in 1949 in East Pakistan, became the central organisation of Bengali autonomy and the movement for independence in 1971. This history explains its place in Bangladesh’s national story. It does not remove the need to examine what happened after independence, when the same movement acquired control of the state. [13]

From liberation movement to one-party presidency

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s role in the independence movement is distinct from his record as the leader of an independent state. In January 1975 the Fourth Amendment replaced parliamentary government with a presidential system and concentrated power in his hands. He then established the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL) as the framework for a one-party political order. A US embassy cable from May 1975 explicitly referred to the declaration of a one-party state, while another recorded the government’s decision to leave only four daily newspapers operating under state control. [13, 14]

Repression was not confined to the press. The Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini, established during Mujib’s government, faced contemporary and subsequent allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and killings of political opponents, particularly on the left. Academic accounts describe the extent of political violence as serious but difficult to measure reliably. Opposition organisations also used violence, so the period should not be depicted as one-sided conflict. [13, 22]

The often-repeated figure of 60,000 opposition members killed during Mujib’s tenure requires precision. The Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) claimed that 60,000 of its supporters had been killed and 80,000 arrested during the first two years of the regime, according to a 1973 report reproduced and discussed by historian Caf Dowlah. Other accounts have put forward lower estimates, and no independently verified national count establishes 60,000 killings as fact. The claim deserves examination, but it must not be reported as a proven death toll or as proof that Mujib personally ordered every death. [13]

These events give the “king’s party” metaphor a sharper meaning in Bangladesh. The Awami League was not a king’s party at birth, but under BAKSAL the distinction between state, governing party and leader was formally eroded. It demonstrates that a movement can obtain democratic legitimacy through mass struggle and subsequently construct a system in which political competition is no longer permitted. That is a stronger historical argument than defining a party solely by its origin. [13, 14]

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party had a different beginning. It was established in 1978 by Ziaur Rahman, a former army chief governing after years of coups and counter-coups. The Jatiya Party was subsequently established around another military ruler, Hussain Muhammad Ershad. Their origins therefore more closely resemble the classic case of a regime building a political organisation around an incumbent centre of power. [18]

But political origin is not destiny. The BNP survived Zia’s assassination, developed a nationwide organisation and won competitive elections under Khaleda Zia. After the uprising that removed Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024, the BNP won a parliamentary majority in February 2026; Tarique Rahman was sworn in as prime minister on 17 February. That development also reflects a family succession in party leadership, illustrating how a party created around an incumbent can later acquire mass electoral support without escaping dynastic politics. [16, 18]

The Awami League’s later history presents another route from opposition movement to governing establishment. Sheikh Hasina returned it to office in 2009 and remained in power until August 2024. Her government was criticised for restrictions on opposition activity, weakening of electoral competition and coercive use of state institutions. The family’s foundational status in the country’s history also remained central to the party’s political identity. These developments invite comparison with Mujib’s 1975 concentration of power, while the differences between the two periods must be recognised. [15, 18]

The July uprising, the death toll and Hasina’s conviction

The final weeks of Hasina’s government brought this concentration of authority into violent focus. During the student-led uprising of July and August 2024, Bangladesh’s security and intelligence forces, together with violent elements associated with the governing Awami League, carried out what a UN Human Rights Office investigation described as systematic repression. The report estimated that as many as 1,400 people may have been killed between 1 July and 15 August, with the vast majority of deaths caused by security-force gunfire. It found reasonable grounds to believe that grave abuses occurred with the knowledge, coordination and direction of senior political and security officials. [29]

The number of people killed remains contested. On 4 July 2026, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said that, by his estimate, at least 2,000 people died in the uprising. That claim is relevant to Bangladesh’s public reckoning, but it should be identified as his estimate rather than as a verified total; the earlier UN assessment was lower. The difference between the figures should not distract from the documented seriousness of the crackdown, but neither should it be concealed in an article concerned with institutional accountability. [29, 30, 34]

On 17 November 2025, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal found Sheikh Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan guilty of crimes against humanity arising from the suppression of the protests and sentenced both to death. The tribunal held Hasina criminally responsible on grounds including incitement, abetment and superior command responsibility, rather than finding that she personally carried out the killings. The verdict was delivered in their absence. It is therefore accurate to say that a Bangladeshi court convicted Hasina in connection with the mass killings, while still distinguishing the legal finding from any particular estimate of the total death toll. [31, 32]

That conviction adds a judicial finding to the political record, but it does not end the debate over the rule of law. Human Rights Watch and the UN raised concerns about fair-trial guarantees in proceedings conducted in absentia and reiterated their opposition to capital punishment. Accountability for crimes committed by a government, and the due-process rights of its former leaders, are not competing principles. Both are necessary if the state is to avoid replacing one form of arbitrary authority with another. [32, 33]

Bangladesh thus exposes the weakness of classifying parties solely by how they began. A party constructed around a military ruler can develop real popular support; a liberation movement can become a vehicle for one-party rule; and an elected government can draw on a political family’s historical legitimacy while weakening rivals. The 2024 crackdown and the subsequent tribunal verdict also show that this is not merely a dispute over symbolism or party history: there can be grave human consequences when coercive institutions are put at the service of remaining in power. The central question is whether those institutions can act independently of whichever party and family occupies government. [13, 18, 29, 31]

The 2024 uprising and the 2026 election have reopened the question rather than settled it. Bangladesh has changed governments, but it has not yet proved that it has changed the underlying rules of political power. The test for the BNP government will be whether it can govern without reproducing the winner-takes-all habits it once suffered under. [16]

The deeper structure: patronage, hierarchy and the psychology of power

Why does this pattern recur across societies that otherwise differ so sharply? The easy explanation is culture: South Asians supposedly prefer strongmen, political families and hierarchy. That explanation is too crude. It turns historically produced behaviour into an immutable social trait.

A better explanation begins with institutions and everyday experience. Political anthropologists have shown that patronage is not a marginal residue in South Asian democracy. In many settings it is one of the mechanisms through which democracy actually operates. Citizens often need politicians not only to make laws but to obtain access to the state: a police response, a public-sector job, a licence, a hospital bed, a road, a welfare benefit or protection from another official. [17]

Where rules are slow, unevenly enforced or difficult to navigate, personal access becomes rational. The politician who can “get things done” may be more valuable to a voter than an abstract promise of institutional reform. The same logic travels upwards. Local leaders attach themselves to MPs; MPs attach themselves to party chiefs; business groups seek proximity to ministers; bureaucrats calculate which political centre will endure. [17]

This creates a political psychology of dependence without requiring any claim that South Asians are naturally deferential. Repeated experience teaches people that power is personal. The leader becomes the person who can protect, punish, distribute and intervene. Loyalty to the individual can therefore appear more practical than trust in an institution that rarely works impersonally.

Dynastic politics grows in the same soil. A family name provides an instant political brand, an inherited network of donors and organisers, and a story that supporters already understand. In Bangladesh, both the Awami League and BNP became inseparable from the families of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman. In Pakistan, the Bhutto-Zardari and Sharif families remain central to their parties. India has its Nehru-Gandhi dynasty as well as numerous regional political families. [18]

The persistence of dynasties is sometimes described as evidence of irrational voters. In fact, it can be understood as a rational response to weak party institutionalisation. Where parties do not transparently select leaders, develop policy schools or allow competitive internal elections, surname and personal loyalty become substitutes for organisational certainty. [18]

The attraction of concentrated leadership is not merely anecdotal. Pew Research Center’s 2024 comparative survey, based on interviews carried out in 2023, found that roughly two-thirds of respondents in India regarded government by a strong leader unconstrained by parliament or courts as a good way to govern. That is an attitude recorded in one survey, not proof that all Indian voters reject parliamentary democracy, nor a finding that can be transferred to Bangladesh or Pakistan without further research. [19]

In other words, the psychology is real, but it is political psychology shaped by incentives. Hierarchy reproduces itself because it often works better for individuals than the formal rules are seen to work. The long-term cure is therefore not moral instruction to voters. It is the construction of institutions that make impersonal rules more useful than personal connections.

The colonial state left a powerful template

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh also inherited a common administrative ancestry. The colonial state was designed primarily to maintain order, collect revenue and govern a large population through a relatively small administrative elite. It was not designed around the idea of citizens continuously supervising government. [17]

Independence transformed the legitimacy and purposes of the state, but many institutional habits survived: powerful district administration, centralised bureaucracy, extensive police discretion and a political culture in which government office carried enormous social authority. Post-colonial leaders therefore inherited a state that was unusually valuable to capture. [17]

In such a system, winning government can mean access not merely to legislation but to employment, contracts, police influence, land administration, regulatory agencies and public media. Politics naturally becomes more zero-sum. Losing office is not experienced as a temporary absence from government; it can mean exclusion from the networks through which protection and opportunity are distributed.

That helps explain the ferocity of political competition. If the state is the principal distributor of opportunity, controlling it becomes existential. The party in government has incentives to weaken rivals before they can return. The opposition has incentives to treat the government as illegitimate rather than wait patiently for another election. Each side’s behaviour then justifies the other’s fear.

The real democratic divide is between parties and institutions

The most important distinction in South Asian politics is therefore not simply between insider and outsider parties. It is between systems in which public institutions can restrain the winner and systems in which the winner can reshape those institutions for partisan advantage. Bangladesh’s one-party turn in 1975, Pakistan’s military-backed party formations and India’s disputes over opaque political funding show different mechanisms through which this boundary can be tested. [1, 6, 13]

A healthy democracy assumes that governments are temporary. Civil servants should expect to serve a future government of a different party. Police should not need to calculate which faction will protect them. Businesses should not need political sponsorship to compete. Opposition politicians should be able to lose an election without fearing prison, dispossession or permanent exclusion. Ruling politicians should be able to lose office without fearing that the incoming government will use the state to destroy them.

That requires reforms that sound less dramatic than a revolution but are ultimately more difficult: credible election management, judicial independence, professional civil services, stronger local government, transparent political finance, protection for media, competitive internal party elections and parliamentary institutions capable of scrutinising executives.

It also requires parties to become organisations rather than courts around leaders. South Asia has no shortage of political mobilisation. It has produced some of the world’s largest parties, mass movements and electoral turnouts. The institutional weakness lies inside the parties themselves, where leadership succession is often opaque, policy formation is centralised and loyalty to individuals can matter more than rules.

Until that changes, new political movements will continue to face the same choice: remain outside power and risk marginalisation, bargain with the existing establishment, or capture the establishment and become its new occupant.

→ All Topics

Photo: PIB/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

A region that can change governments must learn to change the rules

The political history of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot be reduced to a single model of how parties acquire power. The BJP’s organisational rise, the alternation of parties after India’s 1977 election, the popular followings of Pakistan’s PPP, PML-N and PTI, and Bangladesh’s transition after 2024 all show that electoral politics has not been wholly controlled by one permanent political patron. The more useful comparison concerns what parties do to the state when they govern. [2, 3, 10, 16]

Political power remains highly personal in different ways. Bangladesh’s history includes the one-party experiment under Mujib, later dynastic centralisation and the judicial reckoning over the 2024 crackdown. Pakistan’s parties have repeatedly negotiated with a military establishment whose most senior commander can exercise power beyond the electoral system. India’s experience raises questions about party dominance, religious nationalism and the political advantages of unequal access to private funding. These are related problems, but not interchangeable historical events or proven allegations of the same kind. [1, 6, 13, 18, 27, 29, 31]

That is why the same political drama keeps returning under different flags. A powerful leader promises to clean the system. Supporters invest hope in the individual because institutions have failed them. The leader reaches office and discovers that controlling those institutions is easier than reforming them. Opponents respond by seeking their own protector, patron or counter-establishment. The cycle begins again.

The real democratic breakthrough will come when losing power is no longer catastrophic and winning it no longer means owning the state. At that point, South Asia will need fewer kings, fewer royal courts disguised as political parties, and fewer saviours. It will need something more ordinary and much harder to build: parties that can lose, institutions that can say no, and citizens who do not need personal access to power in order to receive what the law already promises them.

Sources and notes

1. Ishtiaq Ahmed, “Forthcoming Pakistan Elections: A Profile on Pro-Musharraf Political Parties”, ISAS Brief 49, NUS (2008).
https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/49-forthcoming-pakistan-elections-a-profile-on-pro-musharraf-political-parties/

2. Rajni Kothari, “The Congress ‘System’ in India”, Asian Survey 4(12), 1161–1173 (1964).
https://doi.org/10.2307/2642550

3. Reuters, “India’s Lok Sabha election 2024: the main political parties and candidates” (16 April 2024).
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-lok-sabha-election-2024-main-political-parties-candidates-2024-04-16/

4. Vinay Lal, “Nathuram Godse, the RSS, and the Murder of Gandhi”, UCLA South Asia.
https://southasia.ucla.edu/history-politics/hindu-rashtra/nathuram-godse-rss-murder-gandhi/

5. “Hindutva in the shadow of the Mahatma: M. S. Golwalkar, M. K. Gandhi, and the RSS in post-colonial India”, Modern Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/hindutva-in-the-shadow-of-the-mahatma-m-s-golwalkar-m-k-gandhi-and-the-rss-in-postcolonial-india/68676BDD205B98828EC18C53C20BE4A7

6. Supreme Court of India, Electoral Bonds ruling summarised in order of 11 March 2024 (State Bank of India v Association for Democratic Reforms).
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/24401067/

7. The Indian Express, “BJP recipient No. 1, its top 10 donors form 35% of its Rs 6,000-crore electoral bond kitty” (22 March 2024).
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/bjp-recipient-no-1-its-top-10-donors-form-35-of-its-rs-6000-crore-electoral-bond-kitty-9227611/

8. Reuters, “Modi’s party distances itself from Adani amid opposition protests” (26 November 2024).
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/modis-party-distances-itself-indias-adani-amid-opposition-protests-2024-11-26/

9. Reuters, “India court says regulator’s probe of Adani does not need more scrutiny” (3 January 2024).
https://theprint.in/india/india-court-says-regulators-probe-of-adani-does-not-need-more-scrutiny/1909152/

10. Madiha Afzal, “Did Pakistan’s Imran Khan win a ‘dirty’ election or a real mandate?”, Brookings (2018).
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-pakistans-imran-khan-win-a-dirty-election-or-a-real-mandate/

11. Michael Runey, “Courts, power politics and parallels: Can Imran Khan hold on in Pakistan?”, International IDEA (2023).
https://www.idea.int/blog/courts-power-politics-and-parallels-can-imran-khan-hold-pakistan

12. Reuters, “Thousands of Imran Khan supporters start march to Pakistani capital, party says” (5 October 2026).
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thousands-of-imran-khan-supporters-start-march-pakistani-capital-party-says-2026-10-05/

13. Caf Dowlah, The Bangladesh Liberation War, the Sheikh Mujib Regime, and Contemporary Controversies, Lexington Books (2016), especially pp. 93–99 and 185–190 of the accessible PDF edition. Reports the JSD’s 60,000 figure as an attributed claim, not a verified total.
https://apnaorg.com/books/english/the-bangladesh-liberation-war/the-bangladesh-liberation-war.pdf

14. US Embassy Dacca, diplomatic cables concerning one-party rule and newspaper closures, May–June 1975 (digitised historical archive).
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975DACCA02971_b.html

15. Salil Tripathi, “The question for Bangladesh: can it break the spell of its bloodstained history?”, The Guardian (7 August 2024).
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/07/the-question-for-bangladesh-can-it-break-the-spell-of-its-bloodstained-history

16. Reuters, “Tarique Rahman sworn in as Bangladesh’s PM after landslide election victory” (17 February 2026).
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/tarique-rahman-sworn-bangladeshs-pm-after-landslide-election-victory-2026-02-17/

17. Anastasia Piliavsky (ed.), Patronage as Politics in South Asia, Cambridge University Press (2014).
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107296930

18. Inge Amundsen, “Democratic Dynasties? Internal Party Democracy in Bangladesh”, Party Politics 22(1), 49–58 (2016), Chr. Michelsen Institute.
https://www.cmi.no/publications/4967-democratic-dynasties

19. Pew Research Center, “Views of different types of government systems across 24 countries” (28 February 2024), fieldwork 2023.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/02/28/attitudes-toward-different-types-of-government-systems/

20. Financial Times, “Is India’s BJP the world’s most ruthlessly efficient political party?” (17 April 2024).
https://www.ft.com/content/d5a1dfaa-ecfb-45c5-b60d-458f89228ea3

21. Reuters, “Indian billionaire Adani says no one from group charged with US FCPA violation” (24 June 2025); includes the group’s response to US allegations.
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-billionaire-adani-says-no-one-group-charged-with-fcpa-violation-2025-06-24/

22. Jamhoor, “The Forgotten Massacre of the Left in Bangladesh”, retrospective reporting on allegations against the Rakkhi Bahini.
https://www.jamhoor.org/read/the-forgotten-massacre-of-the-left-in-bangladesh

23. Human Rights Watch, “Pakistan Needs More Than Elections To Be a Democracy” (6 February 2024).
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/06/pakistan-needs-more-elections-be-democracy

24. House of Commons Library, “Pakistan: 2024 general election” (2024).
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10028/

25. Human Rights Watch, “Pakistan: Ensure Fair, Peaceful Transition of Power” (12 February 2024).
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/12/pakistan-ensure-fair-peaceful-transition-power

26. Reuters, “What are the cases against former Pakistan PM Imran Khan?” (18 August 2026).
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/what-are-cases-against-former-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-2026-08-18/

27. Reuters, “Pakistan parliament approves more powers for army chief, curbs top court” (12 November 2025).
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-parliament-approves-more-powers-army-chief-curbs-top-court-2025-11-12/

28. Reuters, “As Munir’s military takes on Gulf role, Pakistan’s parliament is not involved” (8 October 2026).
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/munirs-military-takes-gulf-role-pakistans-parliament-is-not-involved-2026-10-08/

29. UN Human Rights Office, “Bangladesh: UN report finds brutal, systematic repression of protests” (12 February 2025).
https://bangladesh.un.org/en/289108-bangladesh-un-report-finds-brutal-systematic-repression-protests-calls-justice-serious

30. Dhaka Tribune, “PM Tarique: At least 2,000 killed in July uprising” (4 July 2026). This is attributed as the prime minister’s estimate, not an independently verified count.
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/414305/tarique-rahman-at-least-2-000-killed-in-july

31. Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, “ICT sentences Hasina, Kamal to death for July crimes against humanity” (17 November 2025).
https://www.bssnews.net/law-and-court/332764

32. Human Rights Watch, “Bangladesh: Hasina Found Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity” (17 November 2025). Includes concerns about fair-trial standards.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/11/17/bangladesh-hasina-found-guilty-of-crimes-against-humanity

33. UN Human Rights Office, “Bangladesh: Hasina verdict is important moment for victims” (17 November 2025).
https://bangladesh.un.org/en/305494-bangladesh-hasina-verdict-important-moment-victims

34. Prothom Alo, “No new applications, official July martyrs count now stands at 843” (18 July 2026). Shows divergence between formally registered deaths and broader estimates.
https://en.prothomalo.com/amp/story/bangladesh/2a9ijbf4eb

Editorial note. “King’s party” is used both in its specific Pakistani sense and as a wider metaphor for institutional dependence on incumbency. Figures relating to alleged killings under Mujib and the July 2024 uprising are differentiated as claims, estimates or findings by named authorities. The tribunal’s verdict against Sheikh Hasina is reported alongside concerns over its procedural fairness. The connection between Godse and later BJP politics is ideological and historical, not an assertion of direct party membership or criminal responsibility. Corporate-favouritism allegations are distinguished from court findings.

“In Pakistan, the king’s party can change, but the position of kingmaker has repeatedly rested with the military leadership rather than the electorate alone.”

Why outsider parties struggle, and why successful outsiders change

The fate of outsider parties across the region follows a familiar pattern. Some fail because they cannot build the organisation needed to survive between elections. India’s Janata Party won a historic victory in 1977 but quickly collapsed under internal contradictions. Pakistan’s PTI built a durable mass following, but its confrontation with entrenched institutions has left its leader in prison and its political future under severe pressure. [10, 11]

The BJP is the exceptional case because it combined electoral politics with a deep social and ideological infrastructure that existed beyond the state. Its rise was not dependent on one election or one charismatic moment. It built cadres, affiliated organisations, funding networks and state-level experience over decades. That organisational depth allowed it to survive long periods outside national power. [3, 20]

Successful outsiders face another danger after entering government. Political office attracts donors, defectors and careerists. Public institutions may adapt to the prevailing political hierarchy, and the governing party may begin presenting itself as the authentic voice of the nation rather than one competitor among others. Political finance and perceived access to state contracts can then reinforce leadership dominance even where formal elections continue. The Indian electoral-bonds ruling illustrates the importance of examining these arrangements through enforceable rules rather than party rhetoric. [6, 7, 20]

This is the transition from movement to governing establishment. It is not unique to South Asia, and it does not require every incumbent to commit the same abuses. What matters is whether political competition can continue on fair terms when public institutions, access to resources and the careers of officials depend heavily on those already in power. [17, 20]

A useful distinction