Death of political dynasties?
The elections dealt a jolt to the idea of political dynasties too
Two dynasties (maybe three) have lost in Haryana, and one in Maharashtra, and despite there being enough evidence to suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has its own share of dynasties (more on this in a bit), it is difficult to ignore the fact that, like in the Lok Sabha election, the party was led in these two state elections by a man who is not part of a political dynasty.
In Haryana, the BJP’s performance was stunning.
In Maharashtra, it was impressive.
So, this may be the right time to ask one of two questions: Is this the end of the road for political dynasties in India?
Or is belonging to a dynasty no longer a necessary and sufficient condition for doing well in Indian politics?
To answer these, let’s start with India’s oldest political dynasty.
The Congress’s leadership will come once again, regardless of what loyalists claim, under intense scrutiny for the party’s performance (or rather the lack of it). The party’s dynastic template has been copied effectively by others from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to the National Conference to the Nationalist Congress Party. And it ruled India for the better part of nearly six decades.
Faced with its first serious challenge in a rapidly transforming India, the Congress party has simply crumbled and its cadres are clueless on revival; worse, its leadership has been keener to scrap for the post of leader of the opposition (one it is not entitled to according to the rules, given its woeful performance in the 16th general election) than introspect on the reasons for its defeat.
The outcome of these state elections will only reinforce growing scepticism about the party’s leadership and, by extension, the idea of dynasty.
To be sure, it is not just the Congress party any more that is a family enterprise; it gets all the attention because it was, until recently, the most dominant political party in the country.
Other dynasties haven’t fared well too in the state elections.
In Maharashtra, the Thackerays have discovered that the charisma of the original Thackeray isn’t enough for the Shiv Sena to win on its own and may have to reconcile themselves to a reworking of the relationship with the BJP as the senior partner. Similarly, the Hoodas in Haryana have learnt the hard way (though in Hooda junior you have one of the bright sparks of the Congress party) that the country’s oldest dynasty is now a political liability. The Chautalas of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) have come out poorer in these elections too and now risk a political demise.
As an aside (although it is material to the argument on how the Congress perpetuates dynasties), Prithviraj Chauhan, who was at the helm when his party was dethroned after being in power for 15 years, is part of a dynasty too—Karad is a family constituency; his father and mother have both represented it in Parliament.
The BJP too has its share of dynasts—Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi, Yashwant Sinha and Jayant Sinha, and the Mundes and the Mahajans. Still, it is not a party that is driven by dynasties, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have put in place a rule that limits their future growth and presumably precludes their automatic perpetuation.
The pet peeve against dynasties is that they serve as an entry barrier. Those without dynastic connections face an unfair disadvantage. In the case of the Congress party, the Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, the Chautala-led INLD, and several others, the dynasty is a glass ceiling.
Historian Patrick French, who wrote a damaging critique of dynasty politics in his book (India: A Portrait) published in 2011, argues money and heredity correlate closely. “Fifteen out of the twenty richest MPs (members of Parliament) in the present Lok Sabha are hereditary, and ten of these belong to the Congress Party. MPs who come from an established political dynasty are, on average, nearly five times richer than those who have no nepotistic background in politics. Those who come from a “hyperconnected" political family—for example, those with a mother-in-law, an uncle, and a sibling in national or regional politics—are on average even richer than MPs who have entered parliament after a long and successful career in business," he wrote in a post on the website of the Center for the Advanced Study of India.
One subtext of the mandate in the two assembly elections is that the very idea of dynasty has received a jolt. It may still be too early to claim that the electoral mandate ends the seeming divine right of some politicians. Still, at the least, we can take solace from the fact that dynasty is no longer a necessary and sufficient condition to join and grow in politics.
It is a lesson some Indian companies claim to have learned long ago.
Anil Padmanabhan is deputy managing editor of Mint and writes every week on the intersection of politics and economics.
Comments are welcome at capitalcalculus@livemint.com
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