INDIA CAN NEVER BE 'DYNASTY MUKT'

By Ruma Dubey

As we head into a loooooong weekend, here is a very light hearted but deep rooted article. Nothing ‘financial’ or ‘economics’ about it! Just some food for thought.

The Gandhi’s are out of power and Rahul baba keeps on making these various “foot-o-mouth-o-pia” statements, showing how deep rooted the problem really is with the UPA. On a funny note – Rahul announced support for the striking jewelers and without a second thought, despite their demands not being met, they withdrew the strike!

Thus with the coming in of Modi, maybe we have got rid of the Gandhi dynasty for now but has India really got rid of all dynasty? Or rather the question is – can we ever get rid?

To say that dynasty politics is over, at least for now is wrong as it is not just the Gandhi’s whose ‘family business’ is politics but there are many more. What about them?

Have a look at the other dynasties:

• Sachin Pilot who won on a sympathy wave after the death of his father Rajesh Pilot.
• The Lalu Yadav clan – wife Rabri, daughter Misha and sons Tej Pratap and Tejaswi Yadav and brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav.
• The Abdulla Family – first Sheikh Abdullah who was founder of the party, then son Farooq Abdulla took over and now Omar Abdullah.
• Munde and Mahajan Family – Late Pramod Mahajan’s sister, Pradnya is married to Gopinath Munde and now both Munde’s daughter, Pankaja and Mahajan’s daughter, Poonam are in the political fray.
• Jaswant Singh’s son, Manvendra Singh is an MLA in Rajasthan
• Yashwant Sinha’s son, Jayant is in the Minister of state in Finance Ministry
• The Sangma family – late P.A. Sangma was earlier a Lok Sabha speaker and then was co-founder of NCP and then National People’s Party. His children – daughter Agatha, sons James and Conrad are all in politics.
• Of course the dynasty of Mulayam Singh is huge – first his three brothers – Shivpal, Ram Gopal and Dharmendra and his son, Akhilesh and daughter-in-law Dimple.
• YSR dynasty is no less – the son of late YS Rajasekhara, Jaganmohan Reddy is a BIG politician. YSR’s wife Vijayalakshmi and daughter Sharmila are also in politics.
• Former Prime Minister Deve Gowda has a legacy ready as his entire family too seems to be reaping the fruits – Son HD Revanna, daughter-in-law Anitha and son Kumaaswamy.
• The NTR family’s presence is politics is also huge – starting with Rama Rao, his son-in-law Chandrababu, two sons – Harikrishna and Balakrishna, daughter Purandeshwari and her husband  DV Rao.
• The great leader Lal Bahadur Shastri’s family is spread in all political parties – of his three grand children – Sunil and Siddharth are in BJP and Anil is in Congress. Anil’s son and great grandson of Lal Bahadur, Adarsh is a member of AAP.
• Karunanidhi’s tentacles are also long and wide – sons Alagiri, Stalin, daughter Kanimozhi, and then great nephew Dayanidhi Maran.
• Scindia family – first was Vijaya Raje Scindia and her three children – late Madhavrao, Vasundhara and Yashodhara. We also the third Scindia generation – Jyotiraditya (son of Madhavrao) and Dushyant (son of Vasundhara).
• Then there are many more – Chautala’s, Thackeray’s, Singh Deo, Badals, Sharad Pawar, Soren, Hooda, Jogi, Bishnoi, Chandra Sekhar’s …. The list goes on.

So in that sense, would it be right us to say that with the fall of the Gandhi’s, we will have a ‘dynasty mukt’ India? We might not have the biggest dynasty in power at the Center but the rest of the political world remains about politics.

Politicians often argue – if it is OK for a doctor’s son to become a doctor why not a politician?  But the doctor’s son needs to study and get scrutinized by an external agency but what about these self appointed heirs?

We as Indians will never be free of dynasty politics – that’s the sad truth. In India, it remains all about family!