India’s dynastic politics
Must it be a Gandhi?
Whatever the young heir’s merits, modern India surely needs a broader choice for its effective ruler
Nov 19th 2011 | from the print edition
THE Congress party which has dominated India since even before the British left is in turn dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi family, the democratic world’s most successful political dynasty. Its current leader, Sonia Gandhi, seems sadly to be ill: she has not resumed full duties since receiving treatment abroad for an undisclosed illness, probably cancer. Her son, Rahul, has long been cultivated to take charge of the family firm. But there is a problem with the mild-mannered heir.
Mr Gandhi, a quietly clever 41-year-old free of the accusations of graft that dog so many Indian politicians, is popular. But he seems neither enthusiastic about the job of leading a billion people, nor especially well-equipped to manage India’s feuding politicians (see article). He has spurned the front-line, preferring to confine himself in youth and rural politics. Two years ago he turned down the offer of a cabinet post from the prime minister, Manmohan Singh. He hardly ever speaks in India’s boisterous parliament. When helping deal with a populist anti-corruption campaign this summer he seemed diffident. Some dream of one day persuading his sparkier sister, Priyanka, to come into politics instead, though she has ruled that out (and also comes with a somewhat controversial business-tycoon husband in tow).
To be fair to Rahul, the Gandhi clan has often produced slow starters. Even Indira was tongue-tied and bashful early in her career. The more timid of her two sons, Rajiv, Rahul’s late father, was desperately reluctant to enter politics. His Italian-born widow, Sonia, took years of cajoling before becoming the force behind Congress and India’s most powerful person. She has turned shyness into an art form, wielding power from the shadows. If Rahul brings a victory for Congress next year in crucial regional elections in Uttar Pradesh, a vast state of 200m people, his critics would no doubt forget about his sister rapidly. He could then ascend to the prime ministerial job after elections in 2014.
But the apprentice’s time is running short—and not just because of the worries about his mother’s health. India’s politics is also ailing. In the face of slowing growth, high inflation and awful corruption, the government is looking increasingly fossilised. No notable legislation has passed since the general election in 2009. Next year Mr Singh turns 80. He needs bright new talents to rediscover his sense of purpose. A big reshuffle is long overdue, yet Congress seems wary of promoting any young ministers, for fear of outshining the crown prince.
There are a billion other people
Anyone who wants India to succeed should hope that Mr Gandhi turns into the leader the country so desperately needs. Yet for Congress and India, it is a sorry choice. The consequence of being in thrall to a bloodline is a weak party that lacks shared policies or common values. Promotions are made not on merit, but on closeness to the ruling family. Burgeoning India is hard enough to govern without disqualifying almost the entire population from becoming head of the country’s biggest party. India needs the best possible Congress party, under the control of the best available leader.
As it happens, Mr Gandhi is a rare voice willing to admit some of this. He says he wants to change a system where “politics depends on who you know or are related to.” As Indians shift to the cities and become more literate and informed, they will surely want to hold their government to account—over corruption, economic performance, social security and more. They will care ever less about bloodlines. Eventually dynastic rule will have to give way to something more openly contested and democratic. Let it be sooner rather than later.
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The Gandhi dynasty, continued
The golden Rahul
Rahul Gandhi, a slow learner, will be tested as he steps up to national politics
Nov 19th 2011 | AMETHI, UTTAR PRADESH | from the print edition
LINGER by the wheat fields and scruffy villages of Amethi, Rahul Gandhi’s constituency, and praise rings out for Congress’s heir apparent. “I never thought he’d be so damn handsome”, trills one student, recalling the 41-year-old’s visit to her campus. The head of Amethi’s swanky charitable hospital was equally smitten when he inspected its new blood bank. Not the usual poker-stiff Indian politician, Mr Gandhi strides past security cordons to grab voters’ hands, tries out Awadhi, the local dialect, and holds late-night chats in low-caste homes. Draped in a red and gold sari, Shiv Kumari, a widow in Semra village, happily recalls three hours he spent in her tumbledown cottage. They nibbled vegetables and puri, though she admits “I don’t know why he came”.
Breaking bread with dalits once considered untouchable is a trademark of Mr Gandhi’s campaigns. But the Amethi MP seems happier on rural walkabouts, chatting to roadside tea-wallahs and farm workers, than dabbling in national politics, mixing with better educated or urban voters and speaking in Parliament (which he has done only six times in seven years).
His political model is clear. Sonia Gandhi, his mother and president of the ruling Congress Party, is similarly reticent, perhaps stemming from early anxiety over her facility in Hindi and a wish to avoid personal attacks over her Italian birth. Yet the more “Madam” has been an enigma, the greater has been her strength. “She has negated people with her silence,” says a friend. “I think that is her biggest weapon”. Mrs Gandhi arranged for her son to take the traditional family route to politics, as MP in Amethi, the heartland of the dynasty. If a Gandhi failed to flourish there, he would be in trouble.
Yet it takes little prodding for locals to voice doubts about him. As dusk falls, a long-serving Congressman grumbles that his MP is not “fast-forward”—slow to take decisions and quick to spurn colleagues. “Rahul Gandhi walks alone,” he says, “there are not so many people he is talking with.” A more senior party figure goes further, saying he shuns local bigwigs, not even bothering to say when he is visiting. His behaviour “has been very badly received [in the party], it is hurtful and might backfire on him one day.” Doubts persist over state elections in Uttar Pradesh, due next year. These require “a lot of introspection, action, planning—and frankly I’m not seeing that.” Mr Gandhi will be judged on whether he gets a strong result, meaning at least 50 seats in the state assembly.
Local carping might not matter, but it chimes with national grumbles. Two years ago Rahul spurned an offer of a cabinet post from the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, preferring to continue working in the party. Yet his performance has been underwhelming. Though his reforms of the youth wing are well-intentioned, his push for Congress to reject allies and promote young candidates in state elections earned poor returns from voters in Bihar and Kerala in the past year.
Nor have his interventions been inspiring. He claimed in May to have evidence that villagers in Uttar Pradesh, run by an opponent, had been murdered for their land. The accusation turned out to be baseless. No less troubling was a limp effort as part of a quartet of leaders delegated to lead Congress during the summer, when an anti-corruption populist, Anna Hazare, ran rings around the party. Newspapers and other media are unforgiving. The Hindu, a left-leaning broadsheet, summed him up in May as “Rahul in Blunderland”.
If he had time to get his footing, this might not matter. But now rumours swirl that he will soon get a big party job, even replacing his mother as boss. On November 14th Congress’s general secretary, Digvijay Singh, said the young “national leader” must take on bigger tasks. “The time has now come for Mr Rahul Gandhi to move into the mainstream.” His role in Uttar Pradesh will keep him to the fore.
The bigger reason is Mrs Gandhi’s undisclosed but serious illness, which required a month of treatment in the summer, reportedly at a New York cancer hospital. Stony official silence on her health encourages observers to assume the worst. Equally pressing is the exhaustion of Mr Singh’s ageing government, whose five top ministers now average nearly 74 years. No significant law has been passed since its re-election over two years ago, despite signs of slower growth, rising inflation and a storm over corruption. On November 12th Mr Singh said he would welcome a new party role for Mr Gandhi. A kick-start is sorely needed.
- At an orphanage at the place where Indira Gandhi, his grandmother, was bornAP
- Indira the prime minister, in 1973, with her young family. From the left: Sonia with Priyanka, Sanjay and Rajiv, and a very young RahulAP
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