The Hindu : Politics, siblings and dynasties

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 25, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Politics, siblings and dynasties

By Inder Malhotra

The hype and hoop-la over the "entry into politics" of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi's two children — daughter Priyanka Vadhra and son Rahul Gandhi (usually mentioned by the party faithful in this order though he is older than her) — make little sense. Except perhaps in terms of the Indian propensity to convert every turn and twist in the essentially personality-based politics into an extravaganza.

Ever since Sonia Gandhi herself surprised friends and foes alike by plunging into "active politics", Congressmen and Congresswomen have been clamouring, morning, afternoon and night, that Priyanka and Rahul be "drafted" into the party's service. To this their mother's unwavering reply used to be that this was "for the children to decide". Evidently, they have decided at last, and that should normally have been the end of the matter. But that is not how things happen here.

In the first place, the Congress used what was for it a "momentous event" to put on display yet again its culture of sycophancy. Exactly 24 hours before it was revealed that Priyanka and Rahul had acquired the primary membership of the Congress (obviously by applying for it, as mama had done), something funny happened. A senior Congress spokesman solemnly declared that the siblings were members of the party "by virtue of their birth". And that is where the second bizarre feature of brouhaha came in.

Rather than laugh at the Congress posturing, the BJP, the core of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), protested that Sonia Gandhi was ushering in a "dynastic dispensation".

This enabled the Congress to crow that the saffron crowd had already been "shaken" by the "tremendous success" of the Priyanka-Rahul whirlwind tour of the Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies in U.P.

How realistic are the Congress' great expectations about the impact on the parliamentary poll, especially on the young voters, of Priyanka's inherited charisma, supposedly accentuated by her physical resemblance to grandma Indira, will be known only after the electronic voting machines have delivered their message. Meanwhile, the world's largest democracy ought to have a sense of proportion on at least two counts.

First, in a democracy everyone has a right to join whichever party he or she likes and to contest elections. Whether or not the aspirants to future leadership would succeed in their plans only the electorate would decide. The advent into electoral politics of the Gandhi siblings is therefore no big deal.

Second - and this is more important - there is or should be no cause for the excessive, indeed obsessive, preoccupation with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which is not the only clan of its kind by any means. Sure enough, it is unique in that it is, or rather has been, remarkably dazzling and astonishingly durable. Salman Rushdie was right in calling it a "dynasty to beat Dynasty in a Delhi to rival Dallas." For, three generations of the Nehru-Gandhis have ruled the country, with the electorate's striking endorsement, for 37 of the first 42 years since Independence.

But then this dynasty has been out of power for 13 long years and the Congress it holds in thrall for eight. This does say something about the changed situation marked by a mushrooming of other political dynasties in this feudal land. Of course, none of the new dynasties can hope to match the nationwide sway that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty had enjoyed during its heyday. But each of the newcomers is firmly entrenched already within the limits of its influence that, in this age of constant fragmentation of the Indian polity, is usually confined to a single state.

One has only to mention the three generations of the Abdullahs of Jammu and Kashmir, now being offered competition by the State Chief Minister, Mufti Sayeed, and daughter Mehbooba; the Chautalas of Haryana; and the Badals of Punjab; to name only a few, to drive home the point. Then there are Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and son Akhilesh; the Patnaiks of Orissa; the Thackerays of Mumbai; and the Scindias of Madhya Pradesh (successful on both sides of the political divide). The list is too long to be squeezed into available space.

The short point, therefore, is that when there are dynasties galore why make undue fuss and bother about just one of them?

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