Be that as it may, this has raised an important issue why most political parties in India has become a sort of private limited companies wherein the mantle falls on the sons of their respective political leaders. What is the reason for perpetuating dynastic rule in most political parties in India? This malice is true of not only India but the entire South Asian region. Political leaders not only cling on to the leadership of the party, which is understandable, but also wants to ensure that the baton is handed over to his or her son or daughter.

One reason that is often mentioned is that there is huge money to be made in land deals through corruption. The black money generated is invested in land, one way to stash safely ill-gotten money This money invested in land can be kept liquid or guarded only if there is political power in their respective area. Once the nexus is established between land mafia and political leaders, then they do not want the political power to go out of the family so that money invested in land do not go elsewhere. Also the ill-gotten money through corruption are best invested in land so as to get good rate of return. Without political clout and power, owning benami land becomes risky.

Genuine and honest politicians, who fought for a cause or spearheaded a movement, hardly saw their children getting into politics. Take Mahatma Gandhi for instance. One does not find his children, grand or great grandchildren capturing power in Congress or in any other party. Some might have entered politics long after his passing away and whatever he or she has accomplished is through his or her individual efforts just as in any other profession like IAS officer joining the same service or army officer’s son joining military service and so on.

Likewise one does not hear Sardar Patel’s family in helm of affairs of a political party, DMK founder leader C N Annadurai’s family, Tamil Nadu congress leader K Kamaraj family, Morarji Desai’s family, C Rajagopalachari’ family, Rajendra Prasad’s family, Lal Bahadur Shastri’s family, EMS Namboodripad’s family, Shyma Prasad Mukherjee’s family, MGR or Jayalalithaa’s family, Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s family and so on so forth. This brand of politicians plenty during freedom struggle, are diminishing day by day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be an exception but his majoritarian politics has certain question mark and divisiveness.

In sharp contrast if one sees the plight of congress, it is very clear passing on the baton to successive generation has led to deterioration of the party’s hold among people. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru though might have groomed his daughter Indira Gandhi to take over the reins of congress, but he did not roughshod over other leaders in the party to impose her. Indira Gandhi subsequently turned out to be a good and successful Prime Minister. But she sowed the seeds for making the congress party a family run business and the party has suffered major bruises and its area of influence shrinking day by day in the country. Of course, circumstances after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination threw up by default P V Narasimha Rao a none Nehru-Gandhi family member into the helm of ruling congress party. That did not last as the power went back to family with Sonia Gandhi taking control. This is true of not only Congress but many other parties. Take Akalis, Shiv Sena, Chautala’s party in Haryana, late Ajit Singh’s party in Western UP. Samajwadi party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Deve Gowda’s JD (s) party, DMK in Tamil Nadu, Owaisi’s AIMIM, NCP, National Conference, JMM, PDP and many more. The left parties are perhaps the only exception but they are increasingly losing their political influence in not only India but the world over due obsolescence of their ideology. Even in country like China and Russia the rigid ideology is getting diluted. It may not be the case of father handing over the baton to son the political leadership in BJP, but none can deny the fact that there are several senior dynastic leaders in the ruling BJP as well. Also like any other party, the power is centralized in BJP.

Another reason given for country's politics becoming dynastic is possibly due to the absence of party organizations, independent civil-society associations which mobilize support for a party, and centralized financing of elections. The cadre-based left political parties have found it difficult to grow beyond a point. So also, BJP when it was totally cadre-based party and found it difficult to dominate even in Hindi belt and hence the party had to shift gear to accept lateral entry of politicians from other parties and gave tickets to even criminals as win-ability became a major factor in electoral politics. The RSS backing has however ensured so far that top leadership do not become dynastic.

Social and political analysts argue that this is not a good trend and the country needed drastic reforms to change this so that the political system in India becomes truly democratic. India may claim to be largest democracy in the world but are the political parties in India truly democratic. Unfortunately, the answer is big ‘No’ and India still live in medieval and feudalistic era as far as political parties are concerned. There are about 20 odd families, who control the political space in the country and politics has become a money-making private venture. As a result, Indian economy is unable to realise its full potential. This is because these family run political parties derail economic development and reforms time to time due to vested interests. (IPA Service)