Few obey a leader out of gratitude or kinship value like it used to be. Party workers reserve the option to switch between factions within a party or between parties. Keeping the flock together while maintaining leadership is increasingly difficult. Ideological fluidity, in which welfare schemes are offered by most parties, make party switches easier.
Published Jan 06, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jan 06, 2025 | 9:00 AM
Fissures in political dynasties show maturing of democracy. Representational Image. (Creative Commons)
It is not often that one gets to see factional fights within political parties out in the open. It gets more intriguing when the fight is between the father and son of an influential political party. That’s what we witnessed in the last week of 2024 when the founder of Tamil Nadu’s Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Dr S Ramadoss, and his son and party president Anbumani Ramadoss clashed during the party general council meeting at a village near Puducherry.
The father announced his maternal grandson Parasuraman Mukundan as the party’s youth wing president, but Anbumani would have none of it, saying he needed no “help” from the new nominee. They say father and son have patched up, but I am not inclined to believe it.
Whatever the detail, it is becoming increasingly clear that events in the PMK, whose backbone is Ramadoss’s Vanniyar caste, symbolise the decline of caste and family-based political parties in India. The PMK implosion is significant for its visually dramatic event, but a lot else is happening across India to suggest that much like royal dynasties and clans in history, feuds are becoming common and it is a sign of a maturing democracy.
We need to understand how this works, but before that, a bird’s-eye view of family parties might help us understand that what is happening is a country-wide trend. This might also indirectly point to why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rant against dynastic politics is succeeding: the timing is just right regarding social evolution.
In Maharashtra, the divided house called the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is marked by a bitter estrangement between former chief minister Sharad Pawar and his nephew and current deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar. Last week, about a month after the Maharashtra assembly polls, Ajit’s mother Ashatai Pawar wished for the reunion of Ajit and his uncle, while senior Ajit faction leader Praful Patel
described Sharad Pawar as the party’s “deity” — a perfect example of Indian politics where you can claim to worship the person you walked out on!
The Shiv Sena is also now effectively three parties, with former party worker Eknath Shinde now lording over a lot as deputy chief minister, thumbing his nose at both Uddhav Thackeray, who leads his own Shiv Sena faction, and Raj Thackeray, Uddhav’s cousin who fell out even while party founder Balasaheb Thackeray was alive to start his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
Haryana assembly elections last year saw the virtual decimation of the Chautala political clan founded by former deputy prime minister Devi Lal with both the Indian National Lok Dal of recently demised Om Prakash Chautala, Devi Lal’s elder son, and Jannayak Janata Party founded by Om Prakash’s elder son Ajay Singh Chautala, biting the dust. The faction fights within the Jat community-centred political family are full of twists and turns, enough to show that it has imploded three times over.
In Andhra Pradesh, the YSR Congress is now effectively split with YS Sharmila, the sister of former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, joining the Indian National Congress.
We can go on about other regional parties based on caste or family affiliations in other areas as well, but what we need to really see beyond these headlines is a shifting of the ground that is driving profound changes in India’s political culture.
The simple fact is that democracy is not just about elections, but is also about the spoils of power — and that could range from gains arising as a result of use or abuse of authority or position to prominence through politically appointed posts.
It is becoming increasingly clear that whatever the party, the surge in aspirations of people has been matched by those of party workers and cadres. While parties may appear to be dynastic at the top, party leaders are increasingly under pressure from cadres or loyalists who want a price for their affiliation. Few obey a leader out of gratitude or kinship value like it used to be. Party workers reserve the option to switch between factions within a party or between parties. Keeping the flock together while maintaining leadership at the top is increasingly difficult. Ideological fluidity, in which welfare schemes are offered by most parties, make party switches easier.
Economic growth and better opportunities thrown up by industrialisation and the emergence of jobs-rich information technology and other sectors also show that traditional rural bonds do not bind voters.
Growing media influence and the Internet has sparked debates within communities. It is often forgotten or overlooked that caste or community-based parties also have economic and or/cultural character. The PMK ‘s backbone, the Vanniyar caste, is usually associated with small farmers or agricultural labourers.
The Jats in Haryana and Marathas in Maharashtra (who are central to both Shiv Sena and NCP) are middle and larger farmers who aspire for upward mobility through government jobs and educational opportunities. Vanniyars want to be counted as culturally Hindu to live down their traditional “lower caste” tag. (Vanniyar literally means the ‘lower ones’ in a social sense).
Modernisation and industrialisation are throwing up new challenges for old leaders who cannot rest on their laurels or rural clout anymore.
Modi’s call against dynastic rule, though officially targeted chiefly at the Nehru-Gandhi political family, is perfect for its timing because the median age of India’s 1.4 billion people is only 28 — showing that about 700 million people are below that age and not guided by old kinship and caste patterns. Here’s where we are heading for a new normal of looking beyond simple caste-based votes. The young and the restless
are driving political choices in a manner that makes parties look beyond old thumb rules like ideology, caste, community or a towering leader.
Parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have realised this and are increasingly focused on ideology and programmes, and keep options open on coalition partners. This will soon become a national trend — in fact, we already seem to be there.
Where does all that leave the Congress? Here’s where we need to distinguish between the Nehru-Gandhi family and the rural-based political dynasties.
The Indian National Congress, despite all the things its opponents say, is a party of processes and structure. Unlike other dynastic parties in which clan leaders lead a clear chain of command, the Nehru-Gandhi family operates through smoke signals in which it presides over rivalries in regional units rather than showcasing any rivalry within. Its nuanced style needs to be distinguished from the typical community-based dynastic party.
That apart, it is clear to me that when democracy takes root and grows shoots, clans give rise to individuals as the centre of decision-making and current aspirations rather than ancient identities become the driving factors of political behaviour. In that sense, Indian politics is headed for a state of flux — a most engaging one.
(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator who has worked for Reuters, The Economic Times, Business Standard, and Hindustan Times. He tweets on X as @madversity. Views are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
