In a democratic system of governance, election and democracy are complementary to each other. An election is an integral part of democracy. Whereas dynasty politics is not as it is undemocratic. Yet in the last few decades, this is observed that dynasty politics has been an integral part of the world’s largest democracy i.e. India. Its mechanism has been to capture a party (as seen in Congress by Nehru-Gandhi, DMK by Karunanidhi, SAD by Badal, SP by Yadav, etc.) or form a party (as seen in NC by Abdullah, TDP by Rama Rao, NCP by Pawar, AAP by Kejriwal, RJD by Yadav, etc.), get the same into the family fiefdom by hook or by crook, get elected employing family members, extended family members, relations and royalists (later kind mostly who can’t win an election on their own but has political ambition with muscle and money powers), and rule the country or state like medieval rulers. Therefore, I used to often say this is nothing but dynocracy (Dynasty + Democracy), which means: a dynasty getting elected election after election or alternatively in a democratic system to rule.
Or in fact one comfortable can claim dynasty politics has stolen Indian democracy and its elections.
Here find an interesting recent example of justifying dynasty politics and how it gets grounded. Just before the last election to Goa Assembly, Utpal Pannikar, the son of the former charismatic-popular CM of Goa and the country’s former Defense Minister late Manohar Parrikar, was denied a BJP ticket. Let us not discuss why a ticket was denied by BJP as they are not in the purview of this discussion. Within a day of this information being circulated, both All India Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party -both run by dynasties- offered their party ticket to Utpal. Of course, Utpal for whatever reason/s the same is not known refused the offer. Utpal Pannikar contested the election as an independent candidate and lost. Has he succeeded in the poll, he would have gone on forming his own party using his father’s image like Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh did in the early 2010s after his father Rajasekhar Reddy’s death in an air crash.
At the same time, we must discuss why the above said offers were made to Utpal. The answer is very simple. Utpal is the son of Manohar, and so he has the right to inherit his father’s political legacy as made understood by self-designated so-called liberal democrats such as among others Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banarjee owning parties such as Aam Aadmi Party and All India Trinamool Congress respectively. This is as per the practice taking place in Medieval and Ancient India and the world in which history books are best narrated. Here, I would like to remind my readers Aam Aadmi Party, which had provision for limited tenures for party office bearers, now amended the same to allow the office bearers to retain the positions they hold as long as they like, thus ensuring its present chief with designation Convener could remain in this position a la other dynasty party owners such as Gandhi, Abdullah, Badal, Banarjee, Yadavs, Reddy, Naidu, Pawar, Stalin, etc. enjoy in their respective parties.
Later Aam Aadmi Party Convener Arvind Kejriwal went on addressing election rallies in Punjab accompanying his wife and children following what Nehru did in 1959 in Congress Party meet in Kerala. So laying the foundation for Kejriwal dynasty, exactly like the foundation laying of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in late 1950s, hoodwinking people who blindly supported Kejriwal’s India Against Corruption agitation in early 2010s using gullible Gandhian Anna Hazare.
Now, we have the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in New Delhi, Abdullah-Mukhti dynasty in Srinagar, Badal in Chandigarh, Pawar-Thackeray in Mumbai, Yadav in Lucknow and Patna, Reddy-Naidu in Amaravati, Rao in Hyderabad, Gowda in Bangaluru, etc. as the list is very long, rarely seen in any other established democracies in the world.
Let us in short discuss the effective democratic function of dynasty politicians. In the 17th Lok Sabha, when the average Members of Parliament attendance is 81%, dynasty politicians such as Abhishek Banarjee’s attendance is 13%, Sukhbir Singh Badal – 22%, Farooq Abdullah – 49%, Rahul Gandhi – 56%, Akhilesh Yadav- 32%, Sonia Gandhi – 41%, Mulayam Singh Yadav – 67%, Chirag Ku. Paswan – 48% and Shibu Soren – 35%. Only saving graces in this above-discussed regard are attendances of dynasty products Supriya Sule-93%, the daughter of Nationalist Congress Party founder-cum-owner Sharad Pawar-73%. Except for Supriya Sule, who placed 10 Private Member Bills, none of the above-listed dynasty politicians has placed any PVB. In debate participation and question asking, except the father-daughter duo, no one dynasty products have significant contributions.
I strongly believe this dynasty politics is one of the main reasons for the proliferation of freebies which is nothing less than bribing voters in the name of welfarism, corruption and appeasement politics which are cumulatively destroying the very foundation of Indian democracy.
To remain in power, these dynasties are resorting to all kinds of undemocratic politics. In the process, they steal the election and democracy by giving tickets to their family members and royalists who may be criminals, anti-social, and at the time, anti-nationals as India had witnessed the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s Indira Gandhi giving tickets to the 1978 plane hijacker in 1980 UP Assembly poll, and in the process, democratizing criminals and anti-nationals.
Fortunately, Indian economy has not gone to the extent of what has taken place in Sri Lanka now, a victim of dynasty politics.
But, if no corrective step is taken now, time is not very far for India to be another Sri Lanka which is what Abrahamic preachers and Western weapon manufacturers want. For Sri Lanka, India is there to rescue her as she (India) can’t afford other countries (say for example China) from the faraway region takes advantage of debt trapped Island nation in India’s neighbourhood. Note: For India, there is none to rescue her.
