In Democracy, Family-run parties are a disease

Many Asian countries exemplify how coalition politics in family-run parties promote corruption and nepotism, resulting in the slow erosion of democracy. That’s why their democracy dies a thousand deaths every day.

For many families in India, politics functions as a family enterprise. These so-called democratic parties often form alliances with other family-run parties. There is no democracy within those parties.

The Nehru-Gandhi family manages India’s oldest political party. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Indian National Congress and the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, delivers speeches and leads rallies to defend democracy, despite the lack of meritocracy within his party.

Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India within hours of his mother, Indira Gandhi’s, assassination on October 31, 1984. Rabri Devi became the Chief Minister of Bihar on July 25, 1997, after her husband, Lalu Prasad Yadav, resigned and was forced to step down following an arrest warrant issued against him in connection with the multi-crore fodder scam. Neither had prior political experience. Despite criticism and mockery over her illiteracy, she served as Chief Minister for three non-consecutive terms until 2005. Similarly, many other Indian states today are administered by family-controlled political parties.

According to Election Commission data, around 95% of the recognised and unrecognised political parties are family-controlled. In some cases, when required for political reasons, these family-controlled parties may have a head who is not a member of the family. But this person must be completely loyal to the controlling family and cannot hold an independent view or adopt an approach that diverges from that of the controlling family. Loyalty and politics rarely co-exist in one person, so the non-family member head may be just that – loyal. Like a dog.

Like the Indian judiciary, which is full of judges from a few families, there are hundreds of examples of family-controlled political parties. That disease has completely disillusioned the youth and derailed Indian democracy.

The need for family control arises due to the size of massive financial and other resources – mostly ill-gotten corruption money – that is, centralised party coffers can only be trusted to a family member. The central problem for democracy from such parties is that all decision-making is done solely with a view to progress and the protection of family interests. Social, national, or other interests are only incidental if they align with, or do not conflict with, the interests of the family in power.

Unfortunately, hunger for power is displayed by the non-family-run parties having no hesitation to form alliances with family-run parties, even though both may have ideological differences. We have a lot of such examples here where no single party wins a majority. These alliances are often formed for reasons to defeat a common rival and secure power, by any means. When ideology or core beliefs and policies are sacrificed, getting and retaining power remain the sole objective. In such a political quagmire, parties prioritise winning power over ideological purity. This was seen in the Bhartiya Janata Party forming an alliance with the People’s Democratic Party to form a state government in Jammu & Kashmir.

Fancy narratives – Electoral Compulsions, Pragmatism over Principles –   are set in to confuse and mislead the voters. Such alliances cannot be termed as a marriage of convenience that is formed out of the inconvenience of each other. These are fraud on voters, and often fragile. Voters perceive such alliances as opportunistic, reduce trust, and foment anger among the core voter base. Such unholy alliances break quickly, often decimating one of the partners at the hustings.

The death of democracy in India is on full display. It resembles a chaotic, self-centered system dominated by multiple regional, family-run political parties driven solely by vested interests. As a result, corruption and nepotism have replaced individual merit and talent throughout the country. And democracy dies a thousand deaths every day.

Political parties that neglect democratic principles in their internal operations cannot be relied upon to uphold them in national governance. As institutions of governance, they should demonstrate high standards of ethics, morality, and accountability in public service. If they fail to govern their own parties according to democratic ethics, the quality of governance suffers. And the common man bears the brunt.