When George W. Bush barely scraped through in Florida in 2000, many Indian observers rightly pointed in glee to the successes of our own Election Commission and the inherent checks and balances in Indian democracy. At a time when America was turning red-necked, the seeming superiority of Indian democracy was underlined in 2004 with the emergence of a sikh prime minister, a roman catholic as head of the ruling coalition and a muslim as president (at the time). It now seems like a tired cliché, but the symbolism of 2004 lulled many into believing that the Indian system was inherently better.  

Barack  Obama has forced a rethink. It took Obama only five years to transform himself from an unknown Chicago lawyer to the next occupant of the White House. In contrast, Indian political parties, at the highest level, are essentially closed houses. A quick glance at the Indian political firmament confirms that the longevity of strongmen/ women and their cliques is a feature shared by virtually every political party in every state of the union. The Nehru-Gandhis have controlled the Congress party since independence, the firm of Advani and Vajpayee has held sway over the BJP since the mid-1970s, Farooq Abdullah’s family has controlled the National Conference since its inception, the Chautalas’ sway over Haryana’s INLD remains unchallenged, Mayawati’s iron-clad grip over the BSP is as solid as her mentor Kanshi Ram’s was, Chandrababu Naidu continues to define the TDP like his father-in-law N.T. Rama Rao did, Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool Congress is inseparable from her persona, the Left in West Bengal and Kerala has been defined as much by personality politics as other parties, Karunanidhi has controlled the DMK since at least the 1960s, and Jayalalitha has successfully controlled the legacy of MGR in the AIADMK. Politics in any society, after all, is about the nature of power and the patterns of social control, and our political culture mixes democratic processes with older forms of feudalism and organisation. At a deeper level, while India has undoubtedly grown more democratic with the empowerment of hitherto marginalized groups — OBCs, Dalits etc. —, the structures of political power even within these new groupings remain bound in immutable hierarchies.  

... contd.