No Maya magic, just message

The recent Uttar Pradesh election has provided a stark message to the Congress, particularly to those in the party who were expecting Rahul...

The recent Uttar Pradesh election has provided a stark message to the Congress, particularly to those in the party who were expecting Rahul Gandhi to stir up magic with his family name. Of course, the Indian Express-CSDS post-election analysis did reveal a two-point rise in Rahul Gandhi’s popularity. But this is just not enough of an endorsement of either the leader or the party.

The most important questions this election has raised relate to leadership, political succession and the institution of political parties. While Rahul Gandhi could not improve his party’s fortunes, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav — neither of whom have any political family to back them — emerged as the state’s two most important leaders. In their emergence lies the evidence that voters — faced with a crisis of confidence in the political leadership of de-institutionalised parties dominated by a few families — are experimenting with parties and leaders that represent change. This is why 21st-century India is refusing to give an overwhelming mandate to the party that ruled over it in an uncontested manner through the 1950s and 1960s.

While India in its political journey through the first decade of the new millennium is coming to terms with capricious coalition politics, its mainstream parties, including the Congress and the BJP, have been unwilling to sort out critical issues of organisation and leadership, both of which are linked to recruitment and inner-party democracy. When the Congress — under Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao — appeared to revive the party organisation, it quickly retreated from that goal after the tragi-comic Sitaram Kesari chapter. The sceptre was then handed over to Sonia Gandhi and ‘the family’, ousting in the process each leader with an independent support base and leaving only those who bask in the reflected glory of the Nehru-Gandhis to prosper within it.

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The BJP may not be under the influence of one family, but certain families have come to dominate within it. Similarly, in all the national, state and regional parties, barring perhaps the Left, family and kinship are the first criterion of leadership. Rahul Gandhi is not the only crown prince seeking to use his family’s past glory to come to power.

While many such recruits and successors do get elected, most of them are unable to develop the stature to strengthen the party.

Recently we have been hearing of some young MPs who, cutting across party lines, want to work together for issue-based politics. This is a welcome move indeed. However, predictably, there are a few among them outside the established political families of the country. Such de-institutionalised political recruitment and party processes not only restrict our political horizon, they diminish Indian democracy.

The writer is director, Centre for Public Affairs, Noida