Columns | Opinion

Dynasty Damages Democracy

The electoral legitimacy political dynasts seek is illusory

Minhaz Merchant | 19 Jul, 2024

DEFENDERS OF DYNASTIC politics advance two principal arguments. One, that members of the families of doctors, lawyers, businessmen and actors become doctors, lawyers, businessmen and actors. Why shouldn’t the same principle apply to the families of politicians? Two, the kin of politicians have to win elections. That gives them legitimacy.

Both arguments are flawed. Politicians are public servants. They comprise two pillars of a democracy: the executive (government) and the legislature (Parliament and state Assemblies).

Politicians have a duty—an obligation—to widen public choice, not narrow it. For example, if in the Rae Bareli constituency the candidate nominated by a party belongs to a dynastic family, the electoral choice available to voters in that constituency is reduced to one family. Congress fielded Rahul Gandhi. Other parties perfunctorily fielded candidates knowing that Rae Bareli had been held by the Gandhi family, or its acolytes, for most of the past 72 years, including by Sonia Gandhi for five terms.

An evolved democracy seeks to broaden public choice in constituencies by encouraging merit over dynasty. In India, the thought is sacrilegious. Dynastic parties like Congress, SP, RJD, NC, NCP and DMK argue that merit doesn’t win elections. Family loyalty does. By giving the voters of Rae Bareli a choice restricted to the members of one family, merit is at a discount, feudalism at a premium.

Why is dynastic politics damaging to the quality of democracy? Had voters in family fiefs like Rae Bareli across the country been given an opportunity to choose from a broader pool of talent, not restricted to one dynastic family, those constituencies would not have remained backwaters in terms of infrastructure, primary schools and healthcare.

Apologists cite the example of professions to justify dynastic politics. But medicine, law, accountancy, business and cinema do not have a public duty. Politics in a democracy does. The obligation to promote merit in public life is paramount. That can happen only when voters are given a full spectrum of candidates to choose from. In the recent British general election, for example, virtually no new MP in the House of Commons is a dynast.

Britain reserves its dynastic politics for the toothless House of Lords where all 800 lawmakers either inherit their seats or are nominated peers. This does not affect the quality of British political governance because the House of Lords has no real legislative power. It can delay legislation but once the House of Commons approves a law twice, the Lords can do nothing.

The key is that the 650 lawmakers who matter in the House of Commons are free of dynastic debris. There is no Churchill dynasty, no Thatcher dynasty, no Blair dynasty and no Cameron dynasty.

The same principle applies to the US. John F Kennedy’s daughter Caroline Kennedy was rejected by the Democratic Party as a candidate for the Senate seat from New York. This is akin to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra being rejected by Congress as a candidate from Wayanad, the constituency vacated by her brother Rahul Gandhi.

In 241 years since 1783, when George Washington became the first US president, only three families (the Adams, Harrisons and Bushes) have had more than one member of their family as president. (Theodore and Franklin D Roosevelt were not directly related.) Dynasty in the US carries such odour that Hillary Clinton, running for president in 2016, lost to Donald Trump, a real estate tycoon with no political lineage.

An evolved democracy seeks to broaden public choice in constituencies by encouraging merit over dynasty. In India, the thought is sacrilegious. Dynastic parties like Congress, SP, RJD, NC, NCP and DMK argue that merit doesn’t win elections

Apologists for dynastic politics in India argue that winning an election confers legitimacy on a dynast. Actually, it doesn’t. It only proves that when you restrict the choice of candidates available to voters based on feudal inheritance rather than merit, those voters are being cheated of their democratic right. The obligation of leaders of political parties is to provide voters real choice, not pre-determined choice. Family-run parties, by definition, fail that test.

The outcome is benign neglect of family constituencies.

Voters, impoverished and backward, are pulled out every five years to vote for what in effect is one member of one family, irrespective of that family member’s competence.

The electoral legitimacy political dynasts seek is illusory. When the outcome of a contest is pre-decided by limiting choice and thereby exploiting the vulnerability of the electorate, no legitimacy devolves on the lawmaker.

Doctors have degrees. Actors are made and unmade every Friday. Political dynasts possess only a false sense of feudal legitimacy.