Almost half a century back the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu gave us an expansive understanding of capital. According to him, much of our success in contemporary times depends on a combination of economic, social and cultural capital. Money is important but we also need strong social networks and the generally accepted sense of taste as distinction. In his reading then, along with inherited wealth, other forms of inheritance equally mattered so far as one’s achievements are concerned. Evidently, he compelled us to think of institutions like schools and family and their role in the reproduction of social inequality. However, we often thought that these forms of capital matter only in the context of modern occupations and professions: law, medicine, engineering, banking, entrepreneurship and the like. Given our adulation for modern politics, we invariably hesitated to consider it on par with other occupations and professions. Blame it on Gandhi or the Indian National Movement, our understanding of politics has been suffused with values such as seva (service), tyag (sacrifice) and parmarth (work for others) which somehow bequeathed us a notion of politics as a selfless domain of activities tied up with higher ideals of the times. We understood politics as noble, as a vocation a la Max Weber with the requisite ethic imbued in it. Being a politician was never like being a chartered accountant or a company secretary. It was a vocation meant for those who are expected to be over and above the usual yardstick of professional success and ihlaukik (this-worldly) accomplishments.
In fact, Ram Manohar Lohiya’s anti-congress politics brought the issue of political dynasty to the fore. His consistent targeting of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty did create a political constituency which considered such dynasticism a serious democratic aberration and made it appear as an inalienable part of a debased political culture being institutionalised by the Congress party. Dynasticism was of a piece with sycophancy, hero-worship and the subsequent high-command culture that came to represent the Congress under Indira Gandhi. It was this peculiar Congress culture that paved the ground for remarks like “Indira is India and India is Indira”. For long, it was felt that the dynasticism is intimately linked to the Congress culture alone. Other political formations were seen to be free from this avoidable ill. In particular, Lohiayites took particular pride in repudiating this publicly visible sign of decline in values of the Congress system. Alas! That was not to be the case any longer. In the Hindi heartland, the duos like Mulayam Singh Yadav-Akhilesh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav-Tejashwi Yadav put paid to Lohiya’s dream of dynasty-free socialist politics. The recent entry of Nishant Kumar in the Bihar Cabinet and the ultimate succumbing of Nithish Kumar to the family is the ultimate endorsement of a political tradition that had emanated from Anand Bhawan in Allahabad but is now a well-established political norm.
Even, the BJP, the so-called party with a difference, is as steeped in dynasticism as any other political party. It is the new normal now: so much so that you do not need to give examples to make your argument. Excluding the few top positions in government and party, the BJP has come to terms with the supposed political pay-offs of dynasticism. Just think of Sushma Swaraj-Bansuri Swaraj, or sometime back Yashwant Sinha-Jayanta Sinha. And go to any nook or corner of the country and you will find substantial number of MLAs, MPs and MLCs coming from what are generally called as political families. Even the current BJP Chief Minister of Bihar comes from one such family. Or, think of Anugraha Narayan Singh, Satyendra Narayan Sinha and Nikhil Kumar all constituting an illustrious Congress political dynasty in Bihar. And, I am not disappointed any more when I see the unworthy son of a firebrand erstwhile socialist leader representing the Madhubani parliamentary constituency duly vacated by his aging and ailing father.
Do we need to remind ourselves of continuity in leadership across generations among parties criss-crossing contemporary political spectrum: Be it the DMK in Tamil Nadu, Thackerays in Maharashtra, TDP in Andhra Pradesh, the BRS in Telangana. Even the great socialist and the outgoing Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is reportedly assured of a Cabinet berth for his son in the new Karnataka dispensation. One way of coming to terms with this rampant dynasticism is to acknowledge modern politics as any other occupation and profession. Let us de-glamorise politics and forget the old notion that people enter politics to do jan-sewa (public service) alone. Politicians of all hues do wish to have power and pelf of the office (and rightfully so) the way middle classes wish to have good life for themselves and their children and grandchildren. It is the typical middle-class hypocrisy to expect of the political class a different type of public conduct while them themselves keep busy with machinations of all types to maintain status-quo as the ultimate guarantor of their security and privilege.
Thus, the one element that has a unifying presence throughout the country irrespective of political ideology and the nature of political organisation is this new found legitimacy and normalisation of political dynasty. This has suddenly imbued family as an institution of great economic, social and political consequence which it always has been. But one did hope that post-Independence democratisation would undermine some of the old societal institutions which were responsible for much of social inequality that we see around. Equitable access to new opportunities in whatever field (judiciary is a classic case) will remain an empty rhetoric unless we acknowledge the role of family in perpetuating unequal access for the many and the privileged access to the few. But then, is family as an institution as amenable to public policy legislation as a school or a work place?
As Indians we are given to projecting our families as the ultimate custodian of some of the best human ideals that one can aspire for: love, affection, compassion, selflessness, devotion, mutual help and reciprocity, respect and the list go on. At times, we talk of families in a way as if other societies did not have them, as if family as an institution was unique to us. There is no point quibbling with those who wish to treat family as the ultimate signature of the glorious Indian tradition and culture. Please keep doing so. But please do think of its role in a modern democratic society if you really wish to expand windows of opportunities for those who did not have the good fortune of being born in the right type of families. The incessant glorification of family camouflages its role in undermining some of the best modern values that the humanity has fought over the centuries: equality of opportunity being one of them.
*Manish Thakur teaches sociology at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.
