Thiruvananthapuram: The Indian National Congress (INC) put up a mighty show in poll-bound Wayanad on October 23. The occasion marked the electoral plunge of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra by filing nominations for the by-elections to the Lok Sabha seat that was left vacant by her brother Rahul Gandhi.
Among those present on the dais to wave and cheer at the mammoth crowd were Sonia Gandhi and All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge, besides the routine cast of the party entourage like organisational general secretary K C Venugopal. The overweening influence of the first family of India’s grand old party was in full glare.
Normally, Rahul Gandhi is unsparing in his attack on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at every party event. But on that occasion, skipping mundane politics, he spoke how close to the heart the people of Wayanad are to the family.
Raising his patronising pitch further, Rahul Gandhi said Wayanad is going to have an exceptionally caring and courageous person like his sister as their representative in parliament. He then went on to say that he would continue to be an unofficial representative of Wayanad, though he vacated the official representation of the seat. The outcome of the November 13 voting in the predominantly rural parliament seat in Kerala appears to be a foregone conclusion, going by the electoral history of Wayanad.
Rahul Gandhi had retained the seat in the general elections earlier this year with an enhanced victory margin of over five lakh votes. Apart from the Congress’s own strength, its principal United Democratic Front (UDF) ally Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is a major force in the constituency, spread around Wayanad, Malappuram and Kozhikode districts.
The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) has fielded senior CPI leader Sathyan Mokeri while the BJP has put up youthful and energetic Naya Haridas to take on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Though both are active and moving around the constituency seeking votes, their presence seems to have no greater relevance than which of them is going to finish the runner-up, whatever be the gap with the victor.
Be that as it may, Wayanad brings to sharp focus a deeply disturbing trend gaining firm grip across the country’s political geographies and gaining greater acceptability than ever before as sane politics.
Starting with INC, most parties that matter in the non-BJP opposition axis have comfortably turned into family-run political enterprises. Prominent among them are the DMK in Tamil Nadu, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) in Maharashtra, Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, RJD in Bihar and National Conference (NC) in Jammu and Kashmir. On the other side of the spectrum, TDP in Andhra Pradesh, RJD and LJP in Bihar and RLD in UP are also family-run outfits. To a greater extent, the AAP and Trinamul Congress can be defined as leader-centric party, as the respective supremos command and control their respective outfits.
The BJP and the Left parties are rather exceptions to this new normal. Though BJP too suffers from personality cult and has legatees at various rungs of power, the party is not controlled by any particular family. Rather, it is driven by a philosophy, the fountainhead of which is the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Though politically insignificant on the national plane, the CPI(M) and CPI too are free from dynasticism. But whenever or wherever they came to power, they too had faced personality cult, as is the case with Communism world over.
The trend of dynasticism had sprung and struck deep root in India after the Congress set it as a model decades back. Dynastic politics, of all hues and local versions, flourishes and survives by manipulation and patrimonialism. Its practitioners have shown exceptional skills in pulling the levers of electoral politics to their advantage to occupy prominent spaces in respective terrains.
Corruption has inbred in this model since its perpetuation requires huge financial resources. Of late, the Congress has been masquerading as the biggest defender of the Constitution and republican ideals. Ironically, while indulging in grand eloquence over lofty ideals the party has been unsparing whenever faced with even an internal whimpering against the first family.
The regional versions of dynasticism have now gained strength than ever before in Indian politics. Regional parties started rising in various states soon after independence as vehicles to realise regional political and cultural aspirations, which faced threat due to the overarching nationalism of the centrally-controlled Congress.
Pioneering regional outfits like DMK, Shiv Sena, now defunct Utkal Congress of Odisha and Bangla Congress of West Bengal, Peasants and Workers Party and Republican Party in Maharashtra, various socialist outfits in different other states and Kerala Congress factions reflected this trend, and led initially by leaders of democratic resolve and principles.
Over the decades, however, they have slipped into properties of a few families. The dynastic politics has gained greater sanity and acceptability after the emergence of the BJP as a dominant national force. Since then, regional outfits have greatly succeeded in exploiting the anxieties of those sections either lying outside the BJP’s hardcore nationalist-Hindutva periphery or find it hard to accept the saffron party’s ideology. This has led the so-called liberals to turn a blind eye to family domination of the Congress and its regional allies.
Patrimonialism has been the other prop of dynastic politics. The controlling families patronise around them a loyal coterie, who, in turn, benefit from abject submission. Electoral outcomes have often proved the limitations of this model as well, the latest being the unexpected reversal suffered by Congress in Haryana.
Political dynasts, however, defended themselves by asserting that in a democracy people are the ultimate arbiters. So long as you have the mandate of the people you are fully qualified to remain politics, whether you have inherited a party mantle or not.
