According to recent reports by Indian media, Priyanka Gandhi, the sister of Rahul Gandhi, leader of the country’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, will contest for a seat in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament) from the Wayanad constituency in Kerala. Various media outlets, including the BBC, highlighted that Priyanka’s candidacy is closely watched due to her being a descendant of the Nehru-Gandhi family, India’s most prominent political dynasty. If she wins, the Nehru-Gandhi family will gain another influential member in the Indian Parliament. In fact, political families are widespread across India, transcending party lines. While some Indian citizens disapprove of this trend, believing it fosters corruption, scholars argue that the rise and persistence of political families in India have complex historical and contemporary reasons and cannot be simplistically judged.
“An Inseparable Part of Indian Politics”
Priyanka Gandhi’s mother, Sonia Gandhi, is the former president of the Congress Party and a member of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament). Her brother Rahul Gandhi won seats in two constituencies in Kerala in this year’s Lok Sabha elections but had to relinquish his seat in Wayanad as per legal requirements, the BBC noted in its profile of Priyanka.
When discussing political families in India, the Nehru-Gandhi family often comes to mind first. However, numerous political families exist across the country, with most parties exhibiting this phenomenon. “No country’s political families dominate national life like those in India,” reported the Hindustan Times in April, covering candidates from political families. The article noted that while political dynasties exist globally, their influence in India is unmatched. Despite all Indian parties condemning nepotism and political dynasties, most engage in the very practices they publicly denounce.
According to the Hindustan Times, during the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 19, sixteen candidates from notable political families contested in Tamil Nadu. Similar scenarios were observed in neighboring Karnataka. Despite the state’s three major parties—the Secular Progressive Alliance, the Congress Party, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—advocating for “inclusive” politics, they nominated over twenty candidates with political family backgrounds.
In Bihar, two daughters of National People’s Party Chairman Prasad, Rohini and Misa, were nominated for the Lok Sabha. In Uttar Pradesh, five members of the Yadav family contested on behalf of the Samajwadi Party. In the Muzaffarnagar constituency of Uttar Pradesh, representing the interests of marginalized communities like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, three candidates from the same family, including Pundhir, his wife Kavita, and nephew Abhishek, filed nomination papers with identical addresses.
Before coming to power in 2014, the BJP campaigned against political dynasties, but in the 17th Lok Sabha (elected in 2019), the party had 303 MPs, with 85 in the Rajya Sabha. Among these 388 members, 45 had political family backgrounds. According to the Diplomat website, nearly 30% of the MPs elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 came from political families. The Indian Express emphasized that following the 2019 elections, Punjab and Bihar had the highest proportions of political family MPs. Among parties, the Congress remains the most dynastic, but the BJP is “catching up.”
New York University professor Kanchan Chandra, in her book Democratic Dynasties: State, Party, and Family in Contemporary Indian Politics, analyzed data on MPs from the Lok Sabha elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014. She found that in 2004, about 20% of the 543 MPs had family backgrounds in politics; this rose to 30% in 2009 but fell to 21.92% in 2014.
“Family politics has become an inseparable part of Indian politics, crossing party and regional boundaries,” reported India’s The Print news website, listing 34 of the country’s most powerful political families. For instance, the Badal family has dominated Punjab politics for decades. Prakash Singh Badal founded the Shiromani Akali Dal and served four times as Punjab’s Chief Minister, with his son Sukhbir serving as Deputy Chief Minister from 2009 to 2017. Sukhbir’s wife Harsimrat is currently a Lok Sabha MP and previously served as a minister in Modi’s government.
From “Sixteen Great States” to Party Defects
A few years ago, on an April day, Kundola village in central Madhya Pradesh suddenly became lively as a black SUV, adorned with Congress flags and a family crest on the license plate, slowly entered the village. When the male official stepped out, villagers quickly surrounded him, some extending their hands to greet him, others bowing respectfully, even calling him “Your Highness.”
This official was Jyotiraditya Scindia, both a government minister and a member of a “noble family” in Madhya Pradesh. The BBC noted that the Scindia family had “ruled” the area for over 300 years, with Jyotiraditya’s father also being a significant official. Although Jyotiraditya emphasized that his work was paramount, for many in the nearby areas of Kundola village, his lineage, or family history, was more crucial.
Jyotiraditya’s warm reception illustrates one reason why political families persist in India. “Locally, being a family member (of a political dynasty) is generally seen as an asset rather than a liability,” the Indian Express analyzed the resilience of political families in the country. A 2022 article titled “The Dynamics of Family Politics in India,” published on the Delhi University’s academic forum website Caucus, noted that around the 6th century BCE, the South Asian subcontinent witnessed the rise of the “Sixteen Great States” ruled by political families. This indicates that political dynasties have a deep-rooted tradition in India, dating back over 2600 years, ingraining the values of political families into Indian culture.
The Diplomat website analyzed that family-based occupational continuity remains one of the most evident trends in Indian society. The deep-seated loyalty to family, kinship, and community in Indian society prioritizes surnames over merit, overshadowing the sanctity of constitutional principles. Additionally, in Indian electoral politics, some political families enjoy immense popularity locally, regionally, and nationally, considered crucial for ensuring electoral victories. Research suggests that political families “bring visibility and some political experience to candidates, enabling them to secure allies and resources more effectively when running for office.”
Although political dynasties are common in countries with similar electoral systems worldwide, they are particularly prominent in India. One primary reason is the strong patron-client relationships between influential local families and ordinary people, making constituencies resemble a family’s “domain.” Commoners vote for the family, which then takes care of their interests. Even if a family’s political representative retires or passes away, voters still support other family members. This relationship makes parties more reliant on these political families during elections rather than the other way around. For parties, not nominating a family member as a candidate could mean losing the seat in that area.
Regarding why the power of political families was not weakened after India’s independence in 1947, Jin Ying Chen argues that the democratic context following independence was unique, with socio-economic underdevelopment leading to only a small elite participating in elections and politics. Early Congress MPs mostly came from the upper and middle classes. Concurrently, the Congress Party heavily relied on these elite members to build its voter base, encouraging influential families to become significant political figures.
The article “The Dynamics of Family Politics in India” further analyzed that before 2014, many Indians believed that legendary leaders could ensure political stability without being affected by intra-party competition and conflict. This belief stemmed from the 1977 election when the opposition Janata Party defeated the Congress, only for its government to collapse due to internal competition. Other parties outside the Congress briefly governed in the 1980s and 1990s but also faced political instability.
The Diplomat website examined Indian family politics from the perspective of political parties. It stated that family politics persisted in India due to several organizational defects in most parties. Many Indian parties lack established principles of internal democracy, and their existence and the loyalty of their staff depend on political families. This fundamental weakness makes these parties, except for a few cadre-based parties like the BJP and leftist parties, entirely reliant on the electoral mobilization capabilities of political families. These families often prevent the emergence of alternative leadership outside their ranks, ensuring that political power remains concentrated within them.
Assisting Women and Lower Caste Groups to Enter Politics
In the book Democratic Dynasties: State, Party, and Family in Contemporary Indian Politics, it is mentioned that Indian MPs are highly motivated to push their children into electoral politics, primarily because of the “ever-increasing benefits that power brings.”
“This is unfair,” said a taxi driver in Delhi, expressing his dissatisfaction with family politics. He argued that people should be promoted based on their achievements and hard work, not simply by relying on their father’s or grandfather’s surname. A political science graduate student in Delhi also stated that family politics is fundamentally undemocratic, fostering elitism and a disconnect from the masses, whose choices should be the cornerstone of electoral politics.
A political science professor in Delhi commented that family politics undermines the democratic principles of providing a fair competitive environment and ensuring merit-based leadership. When certain families wield disproportionate power and access to party mechanisms, it distorts the entire political process. Economically, family politics perpetuates vested interests, nepotism, and entrenched power structures. Socially, it reinforces hierarchies and inequality, sending a discouraging message that mobility and success are confined to elite families rather than based on talent and ability. “Family politics hampers India’s political modernization, inclusive economic growth, and social mobility.”
The phenomenon of political families in India has spawned many issues, the most apparent being the “encouragement” of a societal atmosphere where politics is operated as a private enterprise. To ensure control over their “territory,” political families may sacrifice the broader social good to meet the narrow interests of their local areas when formulating public policies and laws. This can also lead to invisible corruption, turning electoral voting into a transactional process that undermines democracy. Additionally, the prevalence of political families is detrimental to party organization, as politicians who control their own resources might act against the party’s will, weakening the party’s connection with the public. Ultimately, the existence of political families reflects the entrenchment of power, inherently signifying inequality in political and economic realms.
Of course, some argue that family politics in India is not entirely without merit. A 2018 article by the Indian think tank Gateway House titled The Puzzle of Indian Family Politics stated that family politics has, to some extent, played a positive role in empowering marginalized groups in Indian society, including lower caste groups and women. Among disadvantaged groups like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the proportion of MPs from political families is high. In the 2009 general election, MPs from lower caste political families were almost twice as likely to be re-elected compared to non-political family lower caste MPs.
Furthermore, family politics has promoted the political involvement of women. Given the persistent patriarchal structures and discrimination against women, family politics has been an important avenue for many women to enter politics. In the 16th Lok Sabha, there were 62 female MPs, of whom 25% to 40% came from political families.
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