The Dhritarashtra syndrome

49

Tweet

Even clever political heavyweights are blind about their sons.

There is a well-known syndrome in Indian politics known as the Dhritarashtra syndrome. Last week as expelled Samajwadi Party heavyweight Amar Singh held forth on the fate that has befallen the Samajwadi Party and listed his grievances in exhaustive detail, it became clear that once again another political "outsider" had fallen victim to the Dhritarashtra syndrome. The blind parent, blindly partial to his own bloodline, usually alienates the second-in-command. In a fit of self-destructiveness, he fatally damages his own political achievements and legacy by becoming intent on anointing his son.

Dhritarashtra, the blind king of Hastinapur has many 21st century avatars. The spirit of Dhritarashtra enters the bodies of men, who are always clever politicians who have built political parties, yet men who throw their cleverness to the winds, when it comes to the political future of their sons.

The main reason for my departure, Amar Singh claimed, is because the Samajwadi Party has become a family empire. And indeed Mulayam Singh Yadav, grassroots netaji, UP's ultimate political prizefighter, once a fierce critic of the Congress dynasty, has not only created his own ruling Yadav dynasty in the Samajwadi Party but also made sure that, irrespective of whether or not it makes political sense, son Akhilesh will be his chosen heir. After all, Amar Singh, despite being branded a political fixer, was a resourceful, energetic, English-speaking face of a party which needed to build bridges across UP's caste and community divisions. It was in the Amar-Mulayam era that the Samajwadi Party emerged as a dominant force in UP, increasing its vote share and emerging even ahead of the formidable Mayawati in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

Mulayam isn't the only politician possessed by the ghost of Dhritarashtra. The famous dark glasses of M. Karunandhi have always rendered him sightless when it comes to his sons Stalin and Azhagiri. Karunandhi lost his key lieutenant, the fire-and-brimstone orator Vaiko, when the Dravida patriarch made it clear that when it came to political succession, the crown would be pass only to his son. Similarly, the Maharashtrian tiger Bal Thackeray must have known in his heart that it was his crowd-pulling nephew Raj who was much more his political heir than his shy, retiring wildlife photographer son, Uddhav. But once again, when it came to choosing his successor, son Uddhav was anointed, leading to Raj's departure within a few months, and the consequent weakening of the Sena.

S Siddaramaiah was the Kuruba leader of Deve Gowda's Janta Dal (Secular). Siddaramaiah held the Backward Caste votebank for the JDS and was recognized as Deve Gowda's unquestioned second-in-command. But when Deve Gowda had to choose a chief ministerial candidate, he opted for son HD Kumaraswamy, leading to the outraged departure of Siddaramaiah and the loss of significant backward caste support for the JD(S). Deve Gowda built a credible alternative to the Congress in Karnataka, only to destroy it for the sake of his son. The Congress warhorse in Kerala, K Karunakaran, had been acknowledged for his political acumen, but his insistence on making his son K Muralidharan a future leader eventually forced him to lose his way in a party he had joined as far back as 1937.

At the heart of the Dhritarashtra syndrome is the gradual decline of the party system. Most regional parties do not hold democratic organizational elections, even though they are mandated by law to do so. The result is that the so-called political party is akin to a tightly-held family business where the spoils of power are shared by only those who bear the family surname. Then, whether it is Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar or the Abdullah family's National Conference, the political party is now a private limited company, where those who are not part of the family can never aspire to go beyond a certain point. Even Sharad Pawar, who has publicly spoken out against dynasty politics, has made daughter Supriya the Baramati MP, thereby suggesting that he - once the arch enemy of "family" - prefers to retain the NCP empire within the family.

The more complex case is, of course, of the original grand old party, the Indian National Congress. Born of the freedom movement, during which millions of Indians lined up to become members, the post-Independence Congress was expected to symbolise the heartbeat of the new-born democracy and literally bring power to the people. Instead, particularly in the last decades, the Congress leadership, both at the states and the Centre, has been monopolized by the khaas admi: defined as those who belong to privileged political families.

Political observers believe that the process of turning India into a dynastic democracy began with Indira Gandhi, whose decision to virtually hand over the Congress to son Sanjay in 1975 resulted in not just the imposition of Emergency, but also in the institutionalization of family rule. The seven-year reign of PV Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri must now be seen as an aberration, with the rise of Sonia Gandhi and her incredible success in holding the party together, only reconfirming the belief that the Congress is best run by single family control.

Rahul Gandhi has indicated that he would like to change the power equations, that he would like to 'open up' the Congress to new talent. But a majority of the 'young' MPs who have emerged as the party's next line of leaders are the sons and daughters of prominent Congressmen. Congressmen must beware of the Dhritarashtra syndrome: political legacies may not be best served by political bloodlines.

Perhaps our feudal tradition has simply overpowered meritocracy. The 'blind' Dhritarashtra stayed silent during the dice game that cost the Pandavas their kingdom. He stayed silent as Draupadi was disrobed in public, even though it was his moral duty to act against his offspring. Perhaps Dhritarashtra's ghost still walks, to prove that in India the duties of responsible kingship always evaporate when it comes to affection for one's own son.