Articles
Democracy with Indian Characteristics
Dt: 21/5/20
Democracy with Indian Characteristics
Dt T H Chowdary*
With Gandhi ji intervention Motilal Nehru and his son Jawaharlal Nehru to succeed him as Congress President in 1929. Jawaharlal Nehru intervened to make his daughter Indira Gandhi become Congress President 1960. Indira Gandhi made her son Rajiv as General Secretary of Congress which enabled him to assume the Prime Ministership of India after Indira ji’s assassination in 1984. Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, Sonia Maino ( Italian by birth assumed /grabbed a Presidentship of the Congress party in 1998. As never in the history or any political party anywhere in the world Congress has become Sonia family’s property, Presidentship, General Secretaryship of the party circulating between the mother Sonia, son Rahul and daughter Priyanka !
2. The Nehru -Indira- Rajiv – Sonia political succession has become the norm among India’s political parties and thereby the Indian characteristic of the western origin democracy ; just as the Chinese characteristics of Marxism –communism-socialism. Chinese rulers post-Mao have sinisized communism. Doing better than they, India’s rulers in the Center and States have been Indianizing democracy, socialism and secularism, investing them with a plurality of characteristics in the spirit of unity in diversity.
3. The late N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) cine-hero founded the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) with the avowed objective of breaking succession to power by inheritance, initiated by the Nehru’s and continued by their progeny. Chandra Babu Naidu fearing that his father-in- law, NTR might make over the TDP (and his Chief Ministership) to his young ambitious talented wife, Lakshmi Parvathi ( whom NTR married after the death of his first wife noble Basava Tarakam) staged a successful conspiracy, dethroned NTR and himself became the Chief Minister of AP and President of the TDP. Since that event in Aug 1995 Sri Chandra Babu Naidu has become the proprietor of the TDP in and out of power to this day.
4. What is more: Sri Naidu inducted his son, Lokesh into the TDP, made him a member of AP‘s State’s Legislative Council and a Minister straight away. He designated himself as the National President of the TDP and made his son , National Secretary of the TDP, appointing some sinecures as Presidents and Secretaries of the TDP in AP and Telangana.
5. In Telangana Sri K.Chandra Sekhara Rao has become the proprietor of the regional party, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). His son K.T.Rama Rao (KTR), his nephew Sri T Harish Rao, his daughter Smt Kavita had all been inducted into positions of power; the first as a Minister in the Cabinet and working President of the TRS ; the second as Cabinet Minister, and daughter Kavita as a Member of Parliament (2014-19). Since her defeat in the election to the Lok Sabha in 2019 she has been put up as a candidate for election to the Legislative Council of TS. A relative of KCR has been sent as MP of Rajya Sab. So, the TRS is effectively the property of the family just as the Congress is that of Sonia Maino Gandhi.
6. In Maharasthra too, the same practice of succession to the leadership of a party has been adopted. Sri Bal Thakery, the charismatic founder and Chief of Shiv Sena is succeeded by his son, Uddhav Thakery as the President of Shiv Sena. In the hunt for power, Sri Uddhav Thakery abandoned his party’s ally BJP, since his son the first time MLA t and in the early 20s, has not been made a CM for the coalition. So he switched the party’s alliance from the BJP to the National Congress Party (NCP) of Sarad Pawar and Sonia Congress. He became the Chief Minister. The reason for dis-association with BJP was that even as a minor partner in the coalition, he wanted his 20 plus years young son should be the Chief Minister. Now in the three party coalition, he is the Chief Minister and his son is a Minister.
7. Sri Sarad Pawar has already put his daughter Supriya Sule and his nephew Ajit Pawar as his successors. Supriya is MP and Ajit Pawar is cabinet Minister.
8. In Karnataka Sri Deve Gowda, one time Prime Minister of India for a few months and Chief Minister of Karnataka has made his son the leader of the Janata Dal (S) and once aligned with the BJP. In the next election he aligned with the Congress to make his son the Chief Minister . So the father Deva Gowda is succeeded by his son, Kumara Swamy. The Janata Dal (S) has become the family’s property.
9. In Bihar when the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Chief Minister Lalloo Prasad had to vacate the Chief Ministership on conviction in the fodder scam case, he nominated his wife Rabri Devi as the Chief Minister . Now that he is languishing in jail and the party is out of power, his younger son Tejeswi Yadav is bequeathed the Presidentship, that is ownership of the RJD.
10. In Uttar Pradesh Sri Mulayam Singh Yadav was the Chief of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Chief Minister. His son Akhilesh Yadav succeeded to the Presidentship of the Samajwadi party and became the Chief Minister for some time in UP.
11. In Tamilnadu, the late Karunanidhi groomed his son, Stalin to succeed him as indeed he did. His daughter, Kanimoli , the second in command of the DMK, has also become a party leader and MP by inheritance.
12. Politics has become the art of conducting public affairs for private advantage. In the name of uplifting the weaker sections of society , the rich are living on the poor and the poor on the poorer.
13. The great historian and philosopher Will Durant observed: “ Democracy without education means hypocrisy without limitation; it means the degradation of statesmanship into politics; it means the expensive maintenance , in addition to the real ruling class , of a large parasite class of politicians, whose function it is to serve the rulers and deceive the ruled”.
14. To gain popularity politicians in India have been helping the emergence of more and more castes among Hindus and identifying them even among Muslims and Christians, the two religions which claim that there are no castes among their followers. While the Kaka Kalelkar Commission of 1955 identified 2,399 castes among Hindus, the Mandal Commission of the late 1970s found them to be 3,743 and now this number of castes among Hindus appears to be exceeding 6000. Further , there is competition in getting backward castes classified as MBCs ( most backward ) and EBCs ( extraordinarily backward) . There is a militant movement among the SCs for classification of their sub-castes. In Andhra Pradesh the Madiga SCs have been agitating since more than a decade to classify the about 60 SC sub-castes into different groups as Mala, Madigas, Rellis etc .,and distribute the 15% reservation among the new groups. A two-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court while staying 27% OBC reservations in Central Educational Institutions observed: “ it is to be noted nowhere else in the world do castes , classes or communities queue up for the sake of gaining backward status.
15. All these events show that while in true democracies change of leadership is by election and not by succession and men and women became presidents of parties and Prime Minister of governments not by succession, in India the concept of democracy has been Indianised, feudalised. Instead of traditional Maharajas, Nawabs and Zamindars, a new crop of “Praja Sevakas” “Nayakas” and leaders, political zamindars has arisen all over India, thanks to the examples set by the Nehrus. These political zamindars (when in power) think that the country and the state and their resources are their property. They decide and the cabinets endorses them. They announce and distribute charities from the tax and debt raised revenues of the state to whomsoever they wish.. The amounts distributed vary according to the personal will and intent of the Chief Minister. We don’t have truly representative democracy where in informed voters exercise their franchise unaffected by cash pay- outs by contestants at election time but a formal electoral democracy. Voters are seduced by promises of direct transfer of government money into voters’ bank accounts if the party gains majority in the Legislature and to win the election, cash is distributed. The elected become billionaires and the electors live in painless poverty. The existence of vast multitudes of proliferating poor is essential for characteristically Indian, democracy to flourish. Democracy, socialism and secularism don’t have universal contents and meaning; they have national characteristics. (1,415 words)
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