Is India Heading Towards a Hereditary Democracy?
No doubt democracy is the best form of governance.
Of course, India boasts of that it is the largest democracy in the world.
There is a saying in politics 'power corrupts power; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
' In the same way the Indian politicians, in their bid to remain in power permanently, has converted 'democracy' into 'hereditary democracy'.
In other words 'democracy' has been perverted or degenerated into 'hereditary democracy'.
'Hereditary democracy' may be defined as the conscious attempts made by the politicians, who are at the helm of affairs or holding power, to transfer power legitimately to their wards ignoring or simply overlooking the claim of other senior politicians in the same party, thereby making the existing party system as well as the democracy a laughing stock in the world.
The underlying motives behind such moves are : 1) when the politicians are in power,they enjoy enormous powers and prestige;they are inured to it.
2) They do not like the shifting of balance of power in favor of any other person in the same party except to their wards.
3) Besides, the Indian politicians with the exception of only a few hand picked politicians amass enormous wealth and unaccounted black money, disproportionate to their income, when they are in power.
4)Such politicians practically consider this wealth as their personal and household wealth;so they want to bequeath it only to their wards and not to others.
Therefore in their bid to transfer power as well as huge wealth to their wards, the party leaders choose one of their wards and groom him or her in politics.
When the wards come of age, they appoint them to important party posts like 'general secretary' etc, so that the wards can learn the nuances of party politics.
Subsequently the wards are even elevated to cabinet berths.
Besides, the party leaders also carefully manipulate the party politics and give instructions to their party cadres that due publicity is given to their wards among the party men as well as in the media.
In the process, the party leaders show utter disregard for their loyal party men, their seniority, experience or even their talent or ability and all of them are being made subservient to the interests of their wards.
In India, with the exception of communist parties, in almost all the national and regional parties, this tendency of promoting the wards in party politics prevail.
If any senior party man, who may not be willing to tow the line of party leadership, has no other go but to quit the party.
Not having any charisma or resources to float his or her own party, the disgruntled senior party man simply carry on acceding to the whims and caprices of the party leadership.
In the result 'hereditary democracy' flourishes without any check.
But it cannot be denied that the wards of the political leaders have the requisite political background and exposure to enter politics on their own right.
However, the most disturbing factor is with the blessing and support of the party leadership, they easily come to the forefront of party politics making other senior party men to suffer in silence.
The degeneration of democracy into 'hereditary democracy' is certainly a retrograde step in the evolution of democracy.
We cannot observe such trends in the Western countries like UK or US which run their democratic form of government.
In the US any factor which is disturbing to democracy is nipped in the bud.
For example, no one can be the president of US for more than two terms.
In the same manner in order to prevent such disturbing trends in democracy in India, we have to do something constructively.
For example, a person who belongs to a particular political party and happens to be the ward of the leader of a political party should be subjected to some reasonable restrictions, so that he cannot assume the leadership of a party beyond a particular tenure.
If we fail to prevent the degeneration of democracy into hereditary democracy in India, it may deteriorate further in the near future, making the party system a casualty, posing a very big threat to very existence of democracy.
Of course, India boasts of that it is the largest democracy in the world.
There is a saying in politics 'power corrupts power; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
' In the same way the Indian politicians, in their bid to remain in power permanently, has converted 'democracy' into 'hereditary democracy'.
In other words 'democracy' has been perverted or degenerated into 'hereditary democracy'.
'Hereditary democracy' may be defined as the conscious attempts made by the politicians, who are at the helm of affairs or holding power, to transfer power legitimately to their wards ignoring or simply overlooking the claim of other senior politicians in the same party, thereby making the existing party system as well as the democracy a laughing stock in the world.
The underlying motives behind such moves are : 1) when the politicians are in power,they enjoy enormous powers and prestige;they are inured to it.
2) They do not like the shifting of balance of power in favor of any other person in the same party except to their wards.
3) Besides, the Indian politicians with the exception of only a few hand picked politicians amass enormous wealth and unaccounted black money, disproportionate to their income, when they are in power.
4)Such politicians practically consider this wealth as their personal and household wealth;so they want to bequeath it only to their wards and not to others.
Therefore in their bid to transfer power as well as huge wealth to their wards, the party leaders choose one of their wards and groom him or her in politics.
When the wards come of age, they appoint them to important party posts like 'general secretary' etc, so that the wards can learn the nuances of party politics.
Subsequently the wards are even elevated to cabinet berths.
Besides, the party leaders also carefully manipulate the party politics and give instructions to their party cadres that due publicity is given to their wards among the party men as well as in the media.
In the process, the party leaders show utter disregard for their loyal party men, their seniority, experience or even their talent or ability and all of them are being made subservient to the interests of their wards.
In India, with the exception of communist parties, in almost all the national and regional parties, this tendency of promoting the wards in party politics prevail.
If any senior party man, who may not be willing to tow the line of party leadership, has no other go but to quit the party.
Not having any charisma or resources to float his or her own party, the disgruntled senior party man simply carry on acceding to the whims and caprices of the party leadership.
In the result 'hereditary democracy' flourishes without any check.
But it cannot be denied that the wards of the political leaders have the requisite political background and exposure to enter politics on their own right.
However, the most disturbing factor is with the blessing and support of the party leadership, they easily come to the forefront of party politics making other senior party men to suffer in silence.
The degeneration of democracy into 'hereditary democracy' is certainly a retrograde step in the evolution of democracy.
We cannot observe such trends in the Western countries like UK or US which run their democratic form of government.
In the US any factor which is disturbing to democracy is nipped in the bud.
For example, no one can be the president of US for more than two terms.
In the same manner in order to prevent such disturbing trends in democracy in India, we have to do something constructively.
For example, a person who belongs to a particular political party and happens to be the ward of the leader of a political party should be subjected to some reasonable restrictions, so that he cannot assume the leadership of a party beyond a particular tenure.
If we fail to prevent the degeneration of democracy into hereditary democracy in India, it may deteriorate further in the near future, making the party system a casualty, posing a very big threat to very existence of democracy.
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