The political turmoil in Maharashtra had all the masala that would make for an interesting Bollywood potboiler or an OTT series. As befits the home of Bollywood, the saga of a government being toppled unfolded in front of our eyes, plot twists and all, in full technicolour and with all the sound and fury. At times, the story resembled the pathos and tension of a Godfather, at others the craziness and illogic of a Hera Pheri. And it is these innate contradictions in pace and emotion that makes politics in India such an interesting watch.
Right now, there is Eknath Shinde who is ensconced as the chief minister, and the former chief minister – and possibly future prime ministerial hopeful (the slogan, after all, was “Narendra ke baad Devendra”) – Devendra Fadnavis as deputy chief minister – in a plot twist that very few saw coming. The Thackeray family has been effectively defanged within the party their patriarch, Balasaheb Thackeray, had set up and built.
From a public posturing perspective, there is still a Shiv Sena chief minister, and the BJP did what it did to save the Hindutva of Bal Thackeray from his biological descendants who were seen to be wandering from the path set by the man. In doing so, the BJP has done what many leaders in the Sena feared doing – making the Sena itself irrelevant. The deal struck to have a Shiv Sena CM and a BJP deputy CM could have come to pass in 2019, but it didn’t. If you are voting for Hindutva, which party would you vote for – the BJP, or a regional party that is based on regional identity and also on Hindutva?
But you really cannot blame the BJP for the turmoil in the Shiv Sena. It is the result of ambitious satraps feeling left out as family members without organisational experience or ground connect rose to the top purely by virtue of birth. As Raj Thackeray pointed out – rather sarcastically – on Twitter, the day a person starts mistaking their good fortune as the fruit of their deeds is the day the downfall begins. Ironically, he left out the fact that his own claim to the top job was because of the accident of birth.
The entitlement of dynastic aspirations to parachute into top jobs in organisations, and boss around far more experienced players is going to rankle, whether you are in the private sector or a political party. Where organisations do not have clear growth paths based on merit, and achievement, you are going to see either the best talent leave or overthrow the existing regime.
The great tragedy of India is dynastic rule – the belief that peoples born into one family are specially endowed to take forward a political organisation by virtue of their genetic background. This happens in business too, but in business there are internal governance mechanisms put in to prevent excesses. These are not always successful, as we have seen with Anil Ambani’s disastrous handling of his companies and with the Ranbaxy heirs. But they exist. With political parties, that is not the case.
As dynasty takes charge, the first thing that it does is sideline all those with mass appeal – leaders with a political base derived from the masses. And replace them with people without the requisite experience or ground connect. We saw this as Indira Gandhi took charge of the Congress in the late 1960s and systematically began to move power away from chief ministers to her office. State after state faced instability as the centre shuffled the CM decks in states. For example, the state of Bihar saw seven chief ministers in the period between 1967 – when Indira Gandhi became PM – and 1977 when she lost the elections post-Emergency. The shortest duration was the five-day rule of Satish Prasad Singh, and the longest was a shade over two years, towards the end of the Emergency era, of Jagannath Mishra. In the same period, UP saw six governments. States like Maharashtra and Karnataka were spared this because of giants like Vasantrao Naik and S Nijalingappa, but many states did not have that luxury. In states where merit ruled, the Congress regained power for a little longer. In states where lackeys were put in charge the party lost, never to return.
The dynasty conundrum confronts every major regional political party in India. There is the first-generation leader who was possibly the first among equals. The man (and usually a man) who galvanised citizens into cadres, and the disgruntled into voters – and created a movement that overthrew the current dispensation. You see that with the Shiv Sena, the DMK, the TDP, the TMC, the NC, the NCP and a host of others who tapped into the resentment against the existing system to provide a counter narrative. However, rather than building strong systems of awarding merit and picking the best to lead the movement to the next level – ie, instead of organisation-building – the patriarch sidelines his allies in the struggle to nominate his progeny. And it is the result of this that we are seeing in parties across the board. Ambitious leaders are leaving in droves to join other parties – either AAP or BJP – which seemingly offer them the chance of advancing their careers. Or ambitious leaders are overthrowing the dynasty to return the party to its first principles.
Unless regional parties and national parties both shake off this dependence on one family ruling them, an already crumbling opposition is going to disintegrate a bit faster. This is not to say that the BJP is not susceptible to dynasty, too. It is. This is the natural instinct of Indians, to perceive power as a hereditary hand-me-down. But, the BJP has enough grassroot-up karyakartas – including the prime minister – who for now keep the organisational politics and ascendency merit-based.
For India to thrive, we need political parties that have inner-party democracy. Where the best, most committed and purpose-driven individuals rise up the organisation, driven by wanting to make a change. And for that to happen, power cannot be an inheritance handed over to the next of kin. The age of family-anointed leaders needs to end and make way for home-grown leaders taking charge. Without that, they are headed for irrelevance sooner rather than later.
(The writer works at the intersection of digital content, technology, and audiences. She is a writer, columnist, visiting faculty, and filmmaker. She tweets at @calamur)
