Return of dynasty politics

Is political dynasty back? Canada's new prime minister Justin Trudeau and US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush would seem to suggest it is.

Not quite. Hot-off-the-oven Justin, as well as Hillary and Jeb, prove that dynastic politics in the West is, in fact, enjoying only a dead cat bounce. All three are exceptions that prove the rule: dynastic politics is an outdated concept living off the last vestiges of feudalism.

The Bhuttos, Gandhis and other assorted political dynasts in Asia who use the Trudeau-Clinton-Bush trio to justify their own sense of dynastic entitlement have got it wrong for several reasons.

Had Hillary been an American dynastic version of Rabri Devi (Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife), she would have been installed as US president right after her husband, President Bill Clinton, demitted office in 2001. Instead she had to fight her way through the Democratic primaries in 2008 - and lost. The winner, a clean-cut attorney from Chicago, Barack Obama, went on to become president.

Imagine an Indian parallel: Sonia Gandhi having to fight half-a-dozen Congressmen (and women) in a mythical Congress primary for one whole grueling year to win the party's nomination and then lose to a 40-something lawyer from Chandigarh.

In America, seven years later, Hillary is still fighting to win the Democratic nomination for the 2016 presidential election. Bernie Sanders, virtually unknown a few months ago, is snapping at her heels though Hillary is likely to win the nomination now that Joe Biden isn't running.

But it won't be over for her. She'll still have to beat the Republican nominee to finally win the presidency after several more tough months of no-holds-barred campaigning.

Meanwhile, Jeb Bush, despite his surname, is struggling in the Republican race. He trails property billionaire Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. His own mother, Barbara Bush, disapproves of him running and of dynastic politics in general. "We've had one too many Bushes already," she was reported to have said acerbicly of Jeb's bid, referring to her husband George H (president from 1989-93) and elder son George W (president from 2001-09). Jeb is currently polling in single digits in his campaign for the Republican nomination, way behind not only Trump and Carson but also other rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz - hardly a ringing endorsement of dynasty.

History of dynasty

The first president of the United States, George Washington, took office in 1789. Since then, in 225 years and through 44 US presidents, only thrice has a single family produced more than one US president: John Adams (1797-1801) and his son John Quincy Adams (1825-1829); William Harrison (who died in office after serving for just a month in 1841) and his grandson Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893); and, most recently, the two George Bushes.

Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt are often cited as examples of successful US dynasts in the 20th century - but they were only fifth cousins. Anti-dynasty sentiment in the US is so strong that president John Kennedy's daughter Caroline was denied a bid for a New York Senate seat by the Democrats. (That's like Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra being denied a Congress ticket from Rae Bareli.)

What about the other Kennedys? After John F Kennedy (JFK) served as president in 1961-63, no Kennedy has made it to the White House. Younger brother Ted Kennedy stood against incumbent president Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primaries in 1980 - and lost. Again, scarcely an endorsement of dynasty.

But what about Justin Trudeau? His father Pierre was prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1984 (with small gaps in between). But Justin's victory is, like the Bushes' and Clintons', an aberration. Canada has never had a dynastic prime minister before. Justin, for all his swoon-friendly looks, is again the exception that proves the rule: dynasty is now a rarity in major Western democracies.

In Britain, Winston Churchill's family has played no role in the country's politics for decades. The last dynastic prime ministers in Britain were William Pitt "the Elder" and his son William Pitt "the Younger". They held office in the mid- and late-1700s. In more than 200 years since, Britain has not had a dynastic prime minister. In France and Germany, too, political dynasties are discredited and virtually absent.

In India, however, feudalism and poverty collude to create a fertile breeding ground for dynasty. Other South Asian countries with similar feudal histories and poverty levels like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal also underpin dynasties.

"Almost all poverty indicators spike in the jurisdiction of dynastic legislators," confirms Ronald Mendonza, executive director of the Philippines-based Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Centre, quoting from the centre's published report. "Legislators from dynasties tend to be richer."

And their constituents tend to be poor

India is no different. According to a study by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the number of crorepati-MPs in the Lok Sabha more than doubled from 156 to 315 between 2004 and 2009. It has increased even further after the 2014 Lok Sabha election. The more dynastic a constituency in India, independent analysis shows, the richer its dynastic MPs - and the poorer its constituents. Amethi and several other constituencies cutting across parties are a proof of that.

India's political dynasts, however, are smug. Their argument is self-serving: "We win elections. So what if we are dynasts? In a democracy, the people choose. If they happen to choose dynasts, so be it."

Therein lies the rub. Democracy should widen choices, not narrow them. By standing from feudal fiefs dynasts prove nothing. They wilfully exploit the principal weakness in our democracy - feudalism - rather than trying to mitigate it by giving voters choices based on merit, not family.

When pinned down, political dynasts in India come up with another pet argument: the children of doctors, lawyers and businessmen also follow in their parents' footsteps. This argument is seductive but for several reasons entirely fraudulent.

First, members of business families inherit by law a specific financial shareholding. To compare them with political dynasts is frivolous. Second, dynasts among professionals like lawyers and doctors, quite apart from having to qualify for their positions through a rigorous educational process, comprise less than 20 per cent of their profession. In contrast, political dynasts in several family-run parties like the Congress, RJD, SP, NCP and TRS comprise virtually 100 per cent of their parties' top leadership.

The BJP, largely non-dynastic for decades, is catching the virus. It traditionally eschewed dynasts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ensured his cabinet is largely dynast-free. And yet in the states and, in a few cases, in Parliament dynastic politics in the BJP is stealthily creeping in. That trend must be reversed if the BJP is not to fall prey to the feudalism and nepotism that have greatly diminished Indian politics.