Indian politics is truly the last refuge of scoundrels. And heirs. When we are not choosing between two criminals, we are these days increasingly offered a choice between two heirs. Nearly every major political leader in the country has started his own baby dynasty, his personal experiment in hereditary democracy. The BJP, which at one point fought a strident battle against the Congress Party’s “dynastic politics” now participates fully in dynasty making, so that in Uttar Pradesh we have the heirs of Rajnath Singh, Kalyan Singh, and Lalji Tandon all fighting to keep the family business intact.

Rumour has it that the BJP’s holier-than-thou national leaders are encouraging this trend because they have themselves discovered the benefits of hereditary democracy.

But who can cast the first stone when this is an all-party, all-India political trend. In the recent Punjab election, nearly every “new face” was an heir, whichever party’s list you wanted to examine. The new Punjab government is almost a Badal family affair. The most outrageous example of “public service” as family business remains the Rabri Devi story, in which our union minister for railways had handed the chief ministership of Bihar to his semi-literate wife when he faced a jail term for alleged corruption.

The contempt our political class has for India shows every time some so-called “leader” dumps an heir on us, and this contempt is evident in our most refined and educated politicians and in the least.

Are we going to waste a decade or so acquiescing or has the time come to start thinking about a correction in our system of democracy? Has the time come to demand a referendum on the kind of political system we want?

... contd.