So over three decades after privy purses were abolished, the Congress party has finally issued an edict telling its assorted rajas, begums and rajkumaris to lose the pretentious prefixes. It has decided to delete any references to feudal titles in all its documents.

This move makes perfect sense, after an election that underscored how much dynastic blood runs in our politics. Our rajas have reinvented themselves in politics with great ease, investing themselves with temporal authority even in democratic India. Their erstwhile principalities often morphed into legislative constituencies, allowing them to exploit lingering feudal loyalties. Their election campaigns, with their weird pomp and paternalist overtones, demonstrate this residual thrall that many parts of India still live under. Even in central Delhi, a road named after Madhavrao Scindia un-self-consciously affixed a Shrimant before his name, a silent affront to India’s democratic consciousness.

Peeling off the labels is one thing, but will this change the vile stuff inside? And of all our political parties, the Congress has the most vexed relationship with pedigree and privilege. It is understandable that they want to dissociate themselves from the taint of transparent feudalism, which royal titles signify. But it will prove much harder to purge the party of decades of dynastic prerogative, starting with the Gandhi family itself. Rahul Gandhi has gone to a great deal of trouble to signal his distaste for politics as a family business, and this move is said to have his powerful backing — but rolling back the self-perpetuating stranglehold of political patronage will be a rough ride. Nevertheless, there’s some consolation in the formal abandonment of glittering titles.