India an ancient civilization,
world’s largest democracy, an emerging world power, a home
to every religion, home to the largest poor population, and a region with so much diversity
that there is a old Hindi saying that describes this best.
"Kos-kos
par paani badle, teen kos par bani”
Its history has
turmoil, war, invasion, growth,consisting of every political and economical term ever
known by human civilization. One event I specifically want to quote in its
history i.e. its independence.
Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru the first PM made the famous speech on 15-Aug-1947 “At the stroke of the midnight hour,
when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes,
which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new,
when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds
utterance.”
The day was dreamt by
every revolutionary. Many had laid their lives for this rare moment.
After independence
India became a federal democratic republic. This event was accompanied by the
devastating experience of partition when millions of innocent died.
Post independence
there was a gigantic task; it was building this scattered geographical area
into a nation. Sardar Vallabhbhai
Jhaverbhai Patel the iron man of India
persuaded 565 princely states to merge in the “Republic of India” and the
national integration completed.
After that democracy continued its journey, governments were elected at
national and states level. In 2009, We
the people of India elected its 15th Lok Shaba, which is currently
running this country.
Analyst and intellects study various aspects
of Indian democracy of its past, its future etc. while traversing the election
result of 1998,1999,2004,2009. I found a very interesting observation. The
observation is regarding hereditary politics. I came to know when I was reading
the book “India grows at Night” by Gurchanran Das.
Hereditary politics is the way where one
generation passes its political powers to its younger generation. In monarchy
and dictatorship this phenomena is very common and is strange none, but in India , the largest democracy , this phenomena is not only prevailing, but rapidly increasing.This astonished me.This can be seen in below graph.
The percentage
of hereditary MP’s across the Indian state can be seen below.
The phenomena
exist almost in each state with only few exceptions which are stated below.
1. Assam
2. Goa
3. Jharkhand
4. Manipur
5. Mizoram
6. Nagaland
7. Sikkim
8. Tripura
9. Uttarakhand
Below
mentioned states are the top ten ones that send hereditary MP’s in 15th Lok Sabha
This rapid
growth is well quoted by Patrick French in his book India: A Portrait he says “Every MP in the Lok Shaba
under the age of 30 had in effect inherited a seat, and more than two-thirds of
the 66 MPs aged 40 or under were HMPS [Hereditary Members of Parliament]. In
addition, this new wave of Indian lawmakers would have a decade’s advantage in
politics over their peers, since the average MP who had benefited from family
politics was almost 10 years younger than those who had arrived with ‘No
Significant Family Background’. In the Congress, the situation was yet more
extreme: every Congress MP under the age of 35 was an HMP. If the trend
continued, it was possible that most members of the Indian Parliament would be
there by heredity alone, and the nation would be back to where it had started
before the freedom struggle, with rule by a hereditary monarch and assorted
Indian prince lings."
Some people make an argument that, if a doctor's son is a doctor, an
engineer’s son is an engineer, businessman’s kids do join their parental
business, then there is no objection, then why is there is so much hue &
cry for politicians, after all any child is always inspired by the atmosphere
present in the family and the upbringing of his parents.
The above argument was counter argument-ed by ex US president John Adams one of the founding fathers of United States “ The idea hereditary professionalism is
ridiculous, it is even more ridiculous when it comes to politics because here
public interest is at stake. If you want to find the best, you have to search for
it. Nature does not puts all the talents into a bloodline, it always scatter
the knowledge and talent. It’s the person who needs to find the best”.
Both the arguments are well enough to describe their side of the story.
As I writer I am on neither side. But I do have many questions in my mind.
· Does this trend represent our genetic acceptance
towards caste system, where people follow their profession by caste, and
society accepts it as it is? If this is the case then is there will an emerging new
caste system of profession, which is liberal, non-violent but will have demarcations?
·
Is India sliding into hereditary monarchy governed by
a rule book (i.e. constitution)?
I urge the readers to respond and correct me where ever I am wrong. The
only thing that terrorizes my mind.
If this trend
continues, earlier there were 565 princely states in India, there is chance that
in future there will exist 545 (it is the number of Lok Shaba seats) monarchy
constituencies. In the past we had our iron man, may be in future we might not.
References:
India a portrait: by Patrick French
India Grows at Night: By Gurcharan Das
amazing information..highly captivating..
ReplyDeleteVery Good study. I think the only problem that seems to be the root of the problem tree is the lack of education or wrong perceptions.
ReplyDeleteYou linked the caste system to the problem, that also is somewhat true, but the root of it is that our people are reluctant to accept social changes.
Now it is our (youngsters) responsibility to spread right knowledge in at-least our ambience so that society starts changing.
Overall very good data. Keep working.
Effective analysis. Kindly quite the source of factual data.
ReplyDeleteOne thing is sure that we do see inheritance in politics too, but that doesnt prove that the new blood which comes in is equally ineffective as their predecessor!
@Abhishek: In my opinion, author is not being judgmental here about wrong and right of inheritance politics in India. He is just raising important question of something which we cannot avoid to think.
ReplyDelete