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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Oct 30, 2017, 08:11 AM IST
It was only last month that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, soon to be party president, defended, rather lamely, the toxic presence of dynasties in Indian politics. Reportedly, he admitted that dynastic politics was a problem in India, but in the same breath went on to justify its presence by making a reference to other political parties, at whose helm are the sons of the yesteryear leaders. The Congress V-P is not wrong given that a large section of the present Indian political leadership has received the right to represent constituencies as if it was their heirloom.
Firstly, this is an exceedingly sad commentary on the dispirited morale of the Indian electorate, which ever so willingly elects representatives, repeatedly, without giving much thought to the role of their MP/MLA in their constituency’s development. Secondly, it is a reflection of how intra-party democracy is sidelined to let sons and daughters of powerful political leaders ride roughshod over the political aspirations of other party workers. This is the sort of discrimination that is deeply embedded in our political edifice, and India can lay claim to losing a multitude of strong, outspoken leaders with unequalled vision and incorruptible integrity to such malicious obstructions. No surprise then that the strength of party workers’ base, as it exists currently, is getting emaciated for parties across the spectrum. If the lowest party worker does not see avenues of vertical growth, why will he bother putting in the time, money and effort to spread the work and word of his party? PM Narendra Modi’s declaration that one must examine if democratic values form the core of a political party is an astute attack on the weak party worker base of not just Congress, but even SP and BSP.
The workers of these and many other parties know well that it is only BJP that can afford them the opportunity of transcending their current station in life and reach the post of Chief Minister or that of PM. This is exemplified, extraordinarily so, in the rise of PM Modi, who joined BJP as an organisation secretary in 1987, went on to become CM in 2001, and then PM in 2014. If fundamental change is to begin in Indian polity, it will have to come from within. Unswerving leaders who brook no discrimination will rise only when the party mechanism is such that it does not force grass root leaders to dim their brilliance or kowtow to the notions of leaders descending from Delhi.
Sans such intra-party democracy, India’s politics will always be marked by genuflecting to the powers-that-be instead of being informed by a freewheeling, lively exchange of political ideas and initiatives that propel the party and its people further. Lastly, grooming a docile leadership is unhealthy for the party in the long run. Wouldn’t Indian political history be diametrically opposite, had a clique of strong Congress leaders resisted the diabolical moves of former PM Indira Gandhi plunging the country into an Emergency? But a personality cult and a demagogue that tolerated no dissent led first to the fall of the party, then the polity and then the people.
It was only last month that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, soon to be party president, defended, rather lamely, the toxic presence of dynasties in Indian politics. Reportedly, he admitted that dynastic politics was a problem in India, but in the same breath went on to justify its presence by making a reference to other political parties, at whose helm are the sons of the yesteryear leaders. The Congress V-P is not wrong given that a large section of the present Indian political leadership has received the right to represent constituencies as if it was their heirloom.
Firstly, this is an exceedingly sad commentary on the dispirited morale of the Indian electorate, which ever so willingly elects representatives, repeatedly, without giving much thought to the role of their MP/MLA in their constituency’s development. Secondly, it is a reflection of how intra-party democracy is sidelined to let sons and daughters of powerful political leaders ride roughshod over the political aspirations of other party workers. This is the sort of discrimination that is deeply embedded in our political edifice, and India can lay claim to losing a multitude of strong, outspoken leaders with unequalled vision and incorruptible integrity to such malicious obstructions. No surprise then that the strength of party workers’ base, as it exists currently, is getting emaciated for parties across the spectrum. If the lowest party worker does not see avenues of vertical growth, why will he bother putting in the time, money and effort to spread the work and word of his party? PM Narendra Modi’s declaration that one must examine if democratic values form the core of a political party is an astute attack on the weak party worker base of not just Congress, but even SP and BSP.
The workers of these and many other parties know well that it is only BJP that can afford them the opportunity of transcending their current station in life and reach the post of Chief Minister or that of PM. This is exemplified, extraordinarily so, in the rise of PM Modi, who joined BJP as an organisation secretary in 1987, went on to become CM in 2001, and then PM in 2014. If fundamental change is to begin in Indian polity, it will have to come from within. Unswerving leaders who brook no discrimination will rise only when the party mechanism is such that it does not force grass root leaders to dim their brilliance or kowtow to the notions of leaders descending from Delhi.
Sans such intra-party democracy, India’s politics will always be marked by genuflecting to the powers-that-be instead of being informed by a freewheeling, lively exchange of political ideas and initiatives that propel the party and its people further. Lastly, grooming a docile leadership is unhealthy for the party in the long run. Wouldn’t Indian political history be diametrically opposite, had a clique of strong Congress leaders resisted the diabolical moves of former PM Indira Gandhi plunging the country into an Emergency? But a personality cult and a demagogue that tolerated no dissent led first to the fall of the party, then the polity and then the people.
