Political action committees in India

Abstract

The purpose of this project to understand the role of PACs(focus on issue-based PACs) in the USA and assess their potential relevance in India. The PACs, which have a special legal status as well as a historical background in the US are key proponents of socio-political engagement as well as monetary funding in the political system. There have been multiple success stories of PACs focused on social issues, asserting a significant amount of pressure on the elected house members in order to push forward their agenda. One of the modern-day examples of such a PAC is the Sunrise Movement, which has been pioneering the cause of climate change by means of the green new deal and played a pivotal role in the 2020 elections. In terms of the Indian context, the youth does not engage vocally in socio-political issues, even though they feel concerned about the issues, high digital penetration and active dissonance. On the other hand, activists face problems such as financial crunch, low awareness & active participants in their pursuit of raising these issues. The PAC model seems to be a significant fit to these vows since it brings financial empowerment, formal organisation levers as well as youth involvement to those pursuing these issues. However, there seems to be a long way for this adoption to happen and even longer for these PACs to hold significant political power to assert pressure on those in power.