Political scientists who have studied political parties have delineated
various factors which determine the nature of a party's organization and
its decision-making process. Such factors include the circumstances under
which a party is founded, the division of labor and coordination between
the activities of different groups in the society supporting the party, the
party's goals and ideology, and the need for specialization to deal with the
environment in which the party operates. Above all, it is the struggle for
power and the desire for survival which are the keys to understanding the
changing nature of the party's organizational structure. ¹

While analyzing European political parties, Maurice Duverger divided
them into ones having direct or indirect structures. The direct structure
consists of dues-paying and card-carrying members who have signed
membership applications and have been duly admitted into the party. In
a party with a direct organizational structure, the members attend regular
meetings of the local party organizations. The indirect structure does not
have direct members but consists of various supportive organizations such
as the trade unions, Friendly Societies, and other associations which have
joined the party en bloc. According to Duverger, "in the 'direct' party the
members themselves form the party community without the help of other
social groupings." ² Parties with indirect structures can be called federal
parties, since they are created by the joining together of like-minded
groups for a common cause.

Whatever the circumstances of the BJP's founding, as it operates today,
it resembles Duverger's model of a federal party. Besides the primary
political component, the BJP, which admits its own dues-paying members,
its major non-political units are the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Whether the BJP is the political front
of the RSS or the RSS is the supportive unit of the BJP is debatable, but

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