Abstract
India has witnessed the dominance of a plethora of political dynasties, both at the national as well as the state level, since independence. The post-colonial Indian state adopted a liberal constitutional democracy premised upon modern representative institutions. However, the primordial principle of hereditary succession of power resiliently co-existed in the form of powerful political families that have continued to impact the nature of Indian democratic political discourse till today. The political parties are an instrumental driver of political life in all modern representative democracies including India. Hence, it is crucial to study how the Indian party system has consolidated the prominence of political dynasties especially from the 1970s onwards, in the realm of both party organisation and the representative institutions. In this context, the article attempts to problematise the nature of dynastic politics in India and offers a framework to analyse the causes of its dominance to understand how it impacts the right to equal political opportunity and electoral competitiveness. The article makes three arguments. First, to better understand the amorphous nature of dynastic politics, two elements – dynastic representation in elected institutions and dynasty-led parties – need to be studied distinctively, despite some commonalities. Second, dynastic representation is largely ubiquitous in most political parties (in both dynasty-led and non-dynasty-led parties) due to the party's preference for legacy candidates and their higher chances of electoral winnability. Third, the article offers two typologies of dynasty-led parties, explaining why the dynasties’ grip over their parties, particularly in recent times, appears to be mostly performance-immune and in what circumstances some dynasty-led parties not only perform better in electoral contests than others but also face tough competition for retaining their dynastic control over the party. Lastly, the article concludes with some reflections on how dynastic representation and dynasty-led parties impact the form and substance of the Indian party system and democratic politics.
Introduction
Dynastic politics is almost ubiquitous in Asia and beyond. According to a 2018 report, political dynasties are present in over 145 countries and nearly half of all democratic countries have often elected leaders from the same family (George and Ponattu, 2018). The prevalence of dynastic succession can be understood as a commonplace in non-democratic countries comprised of monarchies and other forms of authoritarian rule (McMillan, 2013; Brown, 2014; Buzo, 2018; Stenslie, 2020). But the enduring prominence of political dynasties in robust democracies is perceived to be anomalous. Though the dominant phenomenon of dynastic politics has been witnessed even in matured democracies in the West, its over-arching grip seems to dominate the relatively younger democratic countries in Asia (Wyburn-Powell, 2014; Jalalzai and Rincker, 2019; Thompson, 2012; Teehankee, 2018; Asako et al., 2015; Gronnerud and Spitzer, 2018; Rush, 2000; Pisani, 2015). The countries that witness the stupendous clout of powerful and popular dynasties under varying strands of democratic condition include Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, amongst others. India, as one of the most stable democracies, has quite paradoxically nurtured political dynasties at national, state and local level, deeply impacting India's democratic political discourse (Verma, 2021; Yadav, 2020; Mietzner, 2016; Malhotra, 2004). In this context, the article attempts to problematise the nature of dynastic politics in India and to analyse the causes of its continued dominance, despite electoral reversals, in order to understand how it impacts the right to equal political opportunity and democratic electoral competitiveness both electorally as well as within the Indian party system. The article offers an analytical framework to better explain some of the nuances that shapes the nature, causes and impact of dynastic politics in India. The article makes three arguments. First, to better understand the amorphous nature of dynastic politics, two elements – the phenomenon of dynastic representation in elected institutions and dynasty-led parties – need to be conceptually distinguished as two strands of dynastic politics in India. Second, it is inferred that the phenomenon of dynastic representation is largely ubiquitous in most political parties (in both dynasty-led and non-dynasty-led parties) due to the preference of parties for legacy candidates and their higher chances of electoral winnability. Third, the article offers two typologies of dynasty-led parties at the national and state level in India, explaining why the dynasties' grip over their parties appears to be mostly performance-immune, especially in recent times, and under what conditions some dynasty-led parties not only perform better in electoral contests than others but also face tough competition for retaining their dynastic control over the party. Lastly, the article concludes with some reflections on how dynastic representation and dynasty-led parties impact the form and substance of democratic politics in India.
Scope and methodology
For the limited space in this article, the study confines itself both in terms of the period of analysis as well as the number of parties taken up for the study. For dynastic legislative representation, only their presence in national parliament is taken up, as accessing and analysing data on all state legislative assemblies is challenging and cumbersome for the mandate of this work. For dynastic representation in the national parliament, the last four national elections are considered as it gives an impression about the contemporary scenario and confines the timeline of the study. For structuring the analysis, the article deals with a few select prominent dynasty-led parties at the national and regional level in India who are electorally relevant with sizeable vote shares despite some recent instances of electoral setbacks and loss of power. The study uses primary sources like speeches and interviews of political actors and news reports as well as both quantitative and qualitative secondary data sources, and engages in discourse analysis to offer some new-institutionalist explanations for dynastic dominance in Indian politics (Hall and Taylor 1996). The article follows an analytic narrative method to delve into how dynastic politics impact the right to equality of opportunity in India's political landscape.
Setting the context
Political dynasties in a democracy broadly refers to the families in which a political representative or leader is succeeded by his or her family member to that particular political position or when more than one member of a family simultaneously holds political positions within the democratic framework. Albert et al. (2015: 1) define a political dynasty as a ‘family that has successfully retained political power through maintaining control over at least one elective position over successive generations’. As political parties play a pivotal role in modern representative democracies, it is important to also focus on not only elected representative positions but also the dynastic leadership positions in parties which are mostly non-elected yet powerful positions shaping political dynamics. The prevalence of the practice of dynastic politics in a democratic system apprehends that hereditary access to the positions of power is antithetical to the democratic imperative of right to equal opportunity to participate in politics. In other words, the presence of the dynastic political elite seems to deter non-dynastic yet capable leaders to get fair access or opportunity to participate in politics and contest elections despite the democratic promise which entails equal political opportunity for all. However, the other side of the argument that mitigates such concerns regarding dynastic politicians in a democracy is that the ‘hereditary politicians’ despite their privilege and proximity to power have to get themselves elected through democratically held popular elections at regular intervals in order to retain political power. Thus, as members of political dynasties wield power by fighting and winning elections and not by virtue of some traditional aristocratic lineage, they are often absolved as ‘democratic dynasties’ (Chandra, 2016a). So, the fact remains that no dynastic politician can ipso facto cling to power without electoral approbation of the people in a democracy. However, it is true that dynastic privilege constitutes political status, resources and access to power that is much-needed to enter and thrive in the highly unequal landscape of electoral politics in India that largely functions under elite control (Verma, 2021). So, the emergence and prevalence of political dynasties and their impact on democratic principles (spirit) as well as representative institutions in a democracy require further nuanced investigation and understanding.
India's tryst with dynastic politics
India, as the world's largest and one of the most durable democracies in the world, harbours a strong predilection towards dynastic politics. After a prolonged nationalist freedom struggle, India won its independence from British rule in 1947 and catapulted into a constitutional federal democratic republic with a parliamentary form of government. Since Indian independence, the Indian National Congress (INC) party 1 which led the Indian freedom struggle remained electorally popular and held hegemonic political control over the Indian polity for at least the next two decades, referred to as the ‘Congress System’ by Political Scientist Rajni Kothari (Kothari, 1964, 1970). Despite challenges, the modern liberal constitutional framework of ‘procedural’ democracy based on rule of law and regular competitive elections witnessed the establishment of resilient representative institutions premised on a vibrant multi-party system. This facilitated the functioning of elected institutions of law-making and governance both at the national and state level in pursuit of accountable governance. But at the same time, at the societal level, the vestiges of a primordial socio-cultural design in India mired in hierarches, stratified ethnic identities, pre-eminence of communal exclusivity and social prejudices remains embedded (Malhotra, 2004). The principles of occupational inheritance in tune with pre-independence-era monarchical and princely practices along with hereditary caste-based societal design continue to hold resonance within the society (Beteille, 2012; Wanjari, 2022). The process of democratically shaped political modernisation in India interacted with the complexities of the ancient social conditionalities which couldn’t be overlooked, as this is a churning that new nations emerging out of old societies undergo. The process of establishment of a liberal-democratic modern polity juxtaposed with antecedent social structures facilitated an assimilation of conservatism and innovation perceived as the ‘traditionalization of modernity’ (Kothari, 1968: 273) and ‘modernity of traditions’ (Rudolph, 1965: 975). Moreover, limited state capacity, institutional atrophy, personality cult-based centralising leadership styles, fragmentation of the party system, political assertion of historically marginalised communities, a lack of equitable access to essential resources and large-scale poverty and unemployment are major aspects that shaped the process of post-independence democratic consolidation in India.
India witnessed the emergence of a few dynastic politicians in some states earlier, in around the early 1960s (Malhotra, 2004). But the deinstitutionalisation of the Congress Party in the late 1960s and the subservience of the entire party machinery under the centralised control of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi initiated the process of dynastic succession in politics at the national level. It began with the meteoric rise of Indira's younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, at the helm of national politics in the 1970s (Prakash, 2018; Guha, 2012). As he was being groomed as Indira's successor, Sanjay commanded extra-constitutional political authority creating widespread repercussions on India's democratic polity, institutional structures as well as crucial policies of governance (Frank, 2001). However, after Sanjay's tragic death and Indira Gandhi's assassination, the immediate ‘coronation’ of her elder son, Rajiv Gandhi, a political novice at that time, took place as the undisputed leader of the Congress Party and the Prime Minister of India in 1984 (Mitra, 1988). This period of Rajiv's ascension to power marks the inception of institutionalised dynastic succession in democratic India at the highest echelons of power and laid the foundation of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty at the helm of the Congress Party. After Rajiv's assasination in 1991, his widow Sonia Gandhi held the reins of the party since 1997 and Sonia along with her children, Rahul and Priyanka weilds highest authority in the party till today. Though almost unfettered attention, admiration, scrutiny and criticism is hurled at the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of the Congress Party in India, a plethora of smaller regional/state-level political parties emerged within the Indian democratic landscape which are controlled by immensely powerful political families (Malhotra, 2004). In addition to the dynasty-controlled parties, there was an unprecedented proliferation of dynastic representatives in the national legislature and in institutions comprising the political executive and seemingly also at the state level, both in dynasty-controlled as well as non-dynasty-controlled parties (Chandra, 2014, 2016a). This has led to the ‘paradoxical’ proliferation of political dynasties in Indian democracy which seem to have resiliently occupied the democratic institutions of power under the modern liberal constitutional framework (Kumar, 2019; Ved, 2004). One study noted that the ‘percentage of dynast Member of Parliament (MPs) grew’ with time. ‘That the problem of dynasty-based politics is a deep-rooted is shown up by the fact that 35 per cent of villages have been “ruled” by some dynasty or the other since Independence’ (Jha, 2020).
Review of literature
The review of literature engages with three categories of secondary sources. First, it includes biographical works on political leaders in India who are either founders of political dynasties or dynastic parties and the ones who are dynastic leaders. Second, it includes works more categorically focused on dynastic parties and dynastic legislative representation in India. Third, a wide array of works relate to India's political culture, societal milieu, party structures and dynamics of the political economy and nature of the electoral landscape which in some way facilitated the sustenance of dynastic politics within India's democratic system. A qualitative content analysis method has been followed to review the literature. The continued dominance of dynastic politics in the institutional landscape of Indian democracy warrants the need to pursue a deeper investigation into the factors that have contributed to the enduring and increasing salience of modern political dynasties thriving under democratic conditions. A bulk of biographical works largely on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty (Ali, 1987; Frank, 2001; Gopal, 1984; Hangen, 1963; Kidwai, 2009, 2011; Malhotra, 1989; Mishra, 1993) and a few other regional leaders who founded dynastic parties has reflected on the descriptive narration of the evolution of these leaders and their political life (Bhattacharjea, 2008; Ravishankar, 2018; Singh, 2021a). But such biographical accounts, though an extremely rich reservoir of insights, have largely lacked any systematic explanation or theoretical conceptualisation of the nature and resilience of dynastic politics in India. Some extremely enriching socio-cultural explanations underlining the inherent proclivity of Indian society towards occupational inheritance in politics and other spheres that has held the vogue have been articulated by noted social scientists like Andre Beteille, Ashis Nandy and Dipankar Gupta, amongst others, who have worked extensively on Indian political culture (Beteille, 2012; Gupta, 2000; Nandy, 1973, 1989). A focused investigation into the establishment of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty at the national level along with the rise of ‘mini/midi’ dynasties in several states in India as well as a thorough glance at the major political dynasties in other South Asian countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka has been undertaken by journalist Inder Malhotra. Malhotra (2004) in his book Dynasties of India and Beyond: Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh reflected on some crucial explanations for the prominence of political dynasties and their dominance over major political parties in the subcontinent under the rubric of democratic politics. Malhotra argues that ‘modernisation in South Asian societies is only skin deep. Modern values such as equality before the law, respect for the rights of others and due deference to institutions are mouthed but never really accepted’ (Malhotra, 2004: 29). He points out, reiterating Dipankar Gupta's thesis on ‘mistaken modernity’ in India, that despite ‘superficial signs’ of modernity (Gupta, 2000), it is natural for a society embedded in a ‘feudalistic ethos’ to embrace dynastic politics even within a democratic framework (Malhotra, 2004: 29). However, structural deficiencies of the political parties, like factionalism, which allows dynastic dominance, have also been touched upon in the book, with a special focus on the Congress Party. Political theorist Kanchan Chandra (2016a) in her book Democratic Dynasties: State, Party and Family in Contemporary Indian Politics deviated from the socio-cultural explanations of dynastic rule in India and focused longitudinally on the presence of dynastic representatives in the lower house of the national parliament in recent decades, and deciphered crucial modern institutionalist explanations for the high presence of dynastic MPs in the Indian parliament (Chandra, 2016a; Rudolph and Rudolph, 2016). 2 Her work posits that structural design of the modern Indian state and organisational dynamics and leadership composition of the political parties give impetus for political dynasties to thrive in the Indian parliament. Apart from delving into the nuances of social profiling of dynasticism in the Indian parliament and subsequent reflections on party leadership in India, Chandra's work also interestingly points out some of the positive impacts of inclusivity (without supporting the phenomenon of dynastic politics) that political dynasties in Indian democracy have facilitated. Chhibber's (2013) article provides an institutionalist explanation for the endurance of dynastic leadership in Indian parties due to the centralised organisational structure, financial control and lack of influence of independent pressure groups. This article will heavily draw from and attempt to further build on the arguments posited by this extremely impactful body of works. Though the above-mentioned works have richly contributed to the literature on dynastic politics in India, a systematic and nuanced framework to understand the complex nature, causes and impact of dynastic politics in India has not been adequately addressed by the literature. This article seeks to address this gap in some ways by providing an analytical framework to better explain the nuances of the forms and substance of dynastic politics in India. As already mentioned above, in order to attempt further nuanced understanding on the phenomenon of dynastic politics, this article seeks to make a categorical distinction between dynastic representation in elected institutions and in dynasty-led or dynasty-controlled political parties. Though both aspects of dynasticism in politics have tangible commonalities, dynastic representation and dynasty-led parties evolve and endure in different structural conditions and have some distinctive characteristics and ways of shaping India's democratic polity.
Dynastic representation in the national legislature: Glimpses of noticeable dominance
The composition of elected MPs in the national parliament in recent decades suggests that dynastic representation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in most political parties, though in different degrees. As reflected in Chandra's work, dynastic politicians are nominated to contest general elections for parliamentary seats by both dynasty-led as well as non-dynasty-led parties. In her book, a ‘dynastic MP’ is defined ‘as one who is preceded by family members who were active in electoral politics’. (Chandra, 2016a: 13). 3 The study further reveals that not only are a notable section of dynastic candidates nominated by the political parties but also a sizeable section of such dynastic candidates win the elections with popular support and become members of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. Chandra observed that ‘a quarter of Indian parliamentarians were dynastic, on average, between 2004 and 2014’ (Chandra 2016a: 15). Chandra's dataset recorded that the percentage of MPs with a dynastic background was 20% in 2004, 30% in 2009 and 22% in 2014 in the 14th, 15th and 16th Lok Sabhas respectively. It is noteworthy that the two largest parties in India – the INC and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – have a major percentage of dynastic MPs as their representatives in parliament. Congress had 28% of dynastic MPs in the 2004 Lok Sabha, 40% in 2009 and 48% in 2014. BJP, though less dynastic than Congress, still has a considerable section of dynastic MPs in successive Lok Sabhas: 14% in 2004, 19% in 2009 and around 15% in 2014 (Chandra, 2016a). In a separate study on 2019 elections and the 17th Lok Sabha, researchers Verniers and Jaffrelot in their research found similar findings in tune with Chandra's observations. They underline that around 25% of Lok Sabha MPs elected in the 17th national election in 2019 are dynastic MPs. 4 Congress has 44% of its total MPs with a dynastic background and BJP 20% (Vernier and Jaffrelot, 2020). It is interesting that the topmost leadership of the present BJP, an organised political outfit, which is the ruling party in India at the national level since 2014, has continuously denounced dynastic political parties in the opposition, especially the Congress. But, the BJP itself has not been reluctant to nominate dynastic candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and send them to Parliament (Sanghera, 2019). Verniers and Ammassari (2019) found that despite BJP's claims of having a more ‘meritocratic or performance-based approach’ towards candidate selection, ‘22% of rerunning BJP incumbents belong to political families’. It is rather noticed that parties are more likely to renominate dynastic candidates. In 2009, 65% of dynastic MPs compared to 57% of non-dynastic MPs were renominated by the political parties. In 2014, 75% of dynastic candidates compared to 65% of non-dynastic candidates were renominated (Chandra, 2016a: 37). States-based parties, many of which are controlled by powerful political dynasties, are relatively behind the national parties like the Congress and BJP in nominating dynastic candidates for Lok Sabha elections, as 2019 data reveal: ‘22.2% of both Congress and BJP's candidates belong to political families, against 10.4% of all state-based parties’ candidates’ (Verniers and Ammassari, 2019). The parties with the least dynastic representation are CPI and CPM. However, some regional parties like ‘JD(S) (66.6%), SAD (50%), DMK (39.1%), RJD (33%), TDP (32%), NCP (29.4%), TRS (29.4%), BJD and SP (28.6%)’ had a visibly high percentage of dynastic candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. 5 These are largely parties controlled by extremely dominant political families which nominate most candidates from within their family 6 (Verniers and Ammassari, 2019).
Nuances of dynastic dominance in parliamentary representation
However, though dynasticism persists in most political parties in India, regardless of the fact whether the party is led by dynastic leadership or non-dynastic leadership, there are certain levels of variation in the dominance of certain dynasties and marginalisation of others. Chandra's (2016a) book discusses such variations at length. Despite the dominance of dynastic candidates and representatives in most parties, parties with weaker organisation and with dynastic leadership at the highest level tend to nominate more dynastic candidates than others. Dynastic representation also has some identitarian nuances as well. Adam Ziegfeld (2016) in his chapter in Democratic Dynasties further builds on Chandra's proposition to argue that decentralised and more ‘organised parties' are less susceptible to nominating dynastic candidates in parliamentary elections than ‘autocratic parties.' Also, he argues that if the top leadership of the party practises or intends dynastic succession, it is more likely to support dynastic representatives as MPs (Ziegfeld, 2016). Chandra observes in her book that the upper-caste dynasts are found to be more dominant in larger upper-caste-based parties due to their co-ethnic ties and influence. Interestingly, upper-caste political dynasts also find favourable positions in subaltern parties 7 where the subaltern supreme leader prefers ‘ethnic outsiders’ who would not threaten his or her leadership within the party (Chandra, 2016b). Despite these variations in dynastic representation and nomination of dynastic candidates across parties as well as social groups, the fact is that dynastic representation finds resonance in almost all political parties. Their acceptability within the political parties pushes the party leadership to nominate dynastic candidates. Also, the large presence of dynastic representatives in parliament suggests that electoral acceptability of the dynastic representatives propels them to win the elections. The next two sections attempt to delve into some of the factors that contribute to the parties favouring dynastic candidates as well as the electorates favouring dynastic representatives.
Decoding a party's proclivity towards dynastic candidates
It is noted above that despite some variations, parties controlled by dynastic leadership like Congress and parties controlled by non-dynastic leadership like the BJP both nominate a sizeable section of dynastic candidates for the parliamentary elections. This is due to three major factors that make parties nominate dynastic candidates – perception of winnability, proximity to power and intra-party political dynamics. First, the most important factor that works in favour of dynastic candidates is that they are often perceived to be ‘winnable’ candidates by the party leadership. As winning elections is the paramount motive of political parties, they are likely to make a rational and pragmatic choice of selecting candidates based on winnability. So, what makes dynastic candidates appear to be more winnable? It is observed that name recognition, economic and other resources and local deep-rooted political networks are perceived as strong points for dynastic candidates to fight the elections more successfully than non-dynastic candidates. As the Indian electoral landscape is becoming highly driven by high-decibel campaigns and political propaganda, massive economic resources along with social capital are indispensable for putting up a tough political fight (Ghosh and Jha, 2019). In such a context, dynastic candidates with adequate resources, local networks, goodwill and name recognition have good chances of winning seats for the party. Verniers and Jaffrelot (2020: 8) also observe that as ‘parties are risk aversive’ they ‘seek to mitigate electoral risk by picking candidates among tried and tested families’. Verma (2021) in his doctoral research on political dynasties in Uttar Pradesh observes that dynastic politics is a form of elite control in which intra-elite competition persists amongst political families to perpetuate dominance over local economic networks through rent-seeking. Such political dynasties also controls other state and non-state organisations using ‘ethnic linkages and kinship solidarity' that further hollows out the state capacity but gives enormous resource advantage and access to diversified political power to local political families that enables them to consolidate power (Verma, 2021: 126).
The second factor that favours dynastic nominations is dynastic politicians’ proximity to power. As the returns of power in a dominant state like India are extremely high, with privileged access to resources, politicians are inclined to accommodate their family members in politics (Chandra, 2016a) As senior leaders of the party who have held influence and positions of power for a long time, they are able to have ‘self-perpetuation of power’ within the party and use their proximity to party leadership to seek party nominations for their family members (Rossi, 2017). Hence, the influence of political leaders over the party leadership also guarantees election tickets for their progeny. Third, two types of intra-party dynamics also ensure greater dynastic nominations for elections. Dynastic nominations have the functional utility of ushering in generational change within the party and defusing local-level factionalism and defections in the party. As there is no definite age limit for the political representatives in India to retire, it becomes difficult for the political parties to initiate a generational change within the party as senior leaders are reluctant to relinquish lucrative political positions of power. In such circumstances, parties convince the senior leaders to quit and in return provide the seat to their children or other younger members of their family. In this way, the senior leaders quit graciously from parliamentary seats as power remains within their family and the parties are able to bring in younger leaders within the political fray. Data from the Hindu newspaper on the age breakdown of dynastic parliamentary representatives ‘show that the younger the parliamentarian, the more likely he or she is to be from a political family (Rukmini, 2014). In 2014, 81% of members of parliament aged 30 or below and half of lawmakers between 30 and 39 were dynasts (Vaishnav, 2015). Also, it has also been noted that as constituency-level ‘locally rooted dynasts’ have resources and goodwill, the party often nominates dynastic candidates who are likely to enjoy consensus among the various warring factions within the party and can defuse defection and factional fights over ticket distribution in the party (Chandra, 2016a; Ziegfeld, 2016).
Understanding the electoral popularity of dynastic candidates
Though the above factors provide some explanations regarding what makes political parties in India nominate a large number of dynastic candidates for the parliamentary elections, what makes such candidates win public support in the elections also needs some reflection. A large number of dynastic candidates not only fight elections but also successfully win the democratic elections and enter Lok Sabha as representatives in successive national elections, as the abovementioned data show. This suggests that the Indian electorate does prefer a large number of candidates with a dynastic background in the parliamentary elections. One argument to dismiss this claim is that the voters usually vote for the party and its topmost leadership face rather than casting their vote based on their preference for constituency-level candidates, dynastic or otherwise. But such blanket jettisoning of the very logic of representative electoral politics in a parliamentary democracy is possibly stretched (Verniers and Jaffrelot, 2020). A survey referred to in a Times of India report in 2014 suggested that 46% of Indians actually have no problem in supporting dynastic candidates (Vaishnav et al., 2014). The report further describes that in the course of the survey when the candidates were asked why they are willing to support a dynastic candidate as their representative, 45% responded that dynasts ‘are better at politics as it is their family profession’. Such a popular perception coincides with the most reiterated explanations of dynastic politics in India which is that it is natural to inherit the family occupation in the Indian societal design and practice. Malhotra (2004) states that ‘the explanation for the enduring quality of the dynastic pattern in politics is that it is clearly a natural extension to politics of what has been happening in all other walks of life’. Interestingly, in the abovementioned survey, another 40% of the respondents ‘believed that family-based politicians are likely to succeed (in elections) because of greater exposure to politics’. This suggests that not only the party leadership but the voters recognise the structural advantages of dynasts in the form of having name recognition, local networks and other resources required to win elections, and consider the factor of ‘winnability’ for preferring dynastic candidates. As dynastic political networks ‘are part of wider networks—political or otherwise—that connect to “the rest” of society’, the privileges and opportunities of such networks are being passed on to new generations which the voters positively view as an advantage for dynasts (Ruud and Nielson, 2018: 6). However, in the broader public discourse, it is important to note that public support for political dynasticism in India is not always very profound as the Lokniti-CSDS National Election Studies (NES, 2009) survey found low preference for dynasticism amongst the voters (Lokniti-CSDS NES, 2009; Verma, 2021). But, it is undeniably true that a major section of dynastic candidates continues to win elections with popular support.
However, one of the alarming findings in the survey is that only 15% of respondents believed that a dynastic background helps in delivering public services in a better way. This suggests that voters do not vote for dynasts with an expectation of them delivering better services. This is in sync with important findings that suggest that dynastic representatives do not show any better skills of governance than non-dynastic ones. Rather, many times, dynastic representatives are found to underperform and yet get re-elected. Siddharth Eapen (George and Ponattu, 2019) showed that a leader with a long-term intention of setting a dynasty performs well in developmental parameters for generating deep-rooted enduring goodwill and name recognition amongst the electorate. Hence, as such popular goodwill for the dynasty's founder creates ‘inherited incumbency advantage’ for their successor dynastic politician, the dynast have little incentive to perform in office as they seem to win elections due to the voters’ loyalty towards their family rather than their performance (Smith, 2018). However, this is not to suggest that all dynastic candidates are electorally invincible. There are numerous instances of powerful dynasts losing parliamentary elections in their traditional family seats and this is shaped by many other factors like party affiliation, the anti-incumbency wave, underperformance and the nature of electoral competitiveness.
Hence, the dynastic candidates are nominated by both dynasty-controlled as well as non-dynasty-controlled political parties in India due to certain structural features of India's centralised party dynamics as well as the political culture that shapes the nomination process of most parties in India. Similarly, a major section of dynastic candidates after being nominated by parties also witness high chances of acceptability amongst the Indian electorate due to some material advantages, societal perception as well as emotive factors.
Dissecting the resilience of dynasty-led political parties in India
As already discussed, the phenomenon of a major section of dynastic representatives in most political parties (dynasty led as well as non-dynasty led) is different from the enduring resilience of dynasty-led political parties in India. The Indian party system is replete with a number of parties, both at the national as well as at the state level, which are led or entirely controlled by a single political family or dynasty, criticised as ‘democratic feudalism' (Singh, 2015). Such political dynasties are extremely powerful politically, and they fundamentally impact India's party system as well as the electoral political landscape. Such parties range from Congress at the national level that had held national political power in India for more than five decades. The party is led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the family has produced three Prime Ministers of India – Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and Indira's son Rajiv Gandhi – who have collectively ruled India for 37 years. The Congress has been under the control of Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv's widow since 1997 who remained the party president for more than two decades and passed on the baton to her son, Rahul Gandhi in 2017, who subsequently resigned claiming responsibility after the party's huge loss in the 2019 national elections. In October 2022, the Congress party held competitive elections and choose senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge as the party president. The INC got a non-Gandhi president last year after more than two decades after all three politically active members of Gandhi family refused to contest for the post. However, there has been strong speculations that Mr Kharge will act as the proxy of the Gandhi family and Gandhi scion, Rahul Gandhi along with his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi, continues to visibly hold sway in the party (Ghosh, 2022). The Gandhi dynasty at the national level has received the highest attention in India and the rest of the world. However, the fragmentation of the party system and the resultant proliferation of various state-based (regional) parties witnessed that these relatively newer parties in various states in India have emulated the dynastic model from the Congress and created their own well-entrenched dynasties that tightly control these parties (Tully, 2012). Abdullahs in Kashmir lead the National Conference (NC), Lalu Prasad Yadav's family leads his party RJD in Bihar, SP founded by Mulayam Singh Yadav is tightly controlled by his immediate family in Uttar Pradesh, Shiv Sena is led by the Thackeray family 8 (until the recent split in the party in 2022) and NCP is led by the Pawar family founded by Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, JD(S) is led by the Deve Gowda family in Karnataka, Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal founded by Mamata Banerjee is witnessing the rise of her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee as her likely successor in the future, BJD in Orissa is controlled by Naveen Patnaik, son of the party's founder, Biju Patnaik. Southern states like Tamil Nadu have the DMK party which has for a long time been controlled by the Karunanidhi family, and Andhra Pradesh has seen the rise of the TDP founded by TN Rama Rao and the reins of the party eventually taken over by his son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu. KCR, founder of the (TRS has been renamed as Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)) in Telangana, is also seen encouraging his family members into politics (Malhotra, 2004; Singh, 2021n; Reddy, 2018). There are also other important dynasty-led parties that could not be mentioned here due to lack of space. These parties have been extremely politically significant as all of them have occupied power in many large and resourceful Indian states and have deeply shaped Indian party politics. Many other smaller parties, like Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Apna Dal in UP and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar amongst many others, also function under tight control of family, mostly the family of the founder, and have played an important role in states’ power dynamics by often joining the ruling coalition.
Typologies of dynasty-led parties
Dynastic by practice
This article argues that though dynasty-led parties are aplenty in India, they can be divided into two categories by closely looking at their history of formation and the evolution of the party leadership which are: dynastic by practice parties and dynastic by design parties. Dynastic by practice parties can be referred to as parties not originally founded based on the authority and popularity of a single leader that usually lead to dynastic foundation of the party by the leader's family. Rather, these parties came into being either based on a collective leadership or/and premised upon a strong socio-political movement. The founder(s) of such parties did not establish their own dynastic rule, rather dynastic leadership was introduced in a later period by a powerful leader in certain conducive circumstances and hence continued as an established practice. In other words, in such a party, dynastic leadership took control when the erstwhile institutionalised organised party structure weakened or the ideological glue of the party faded with time or became electorally unviable. The Congress Party is a textbook example of becoming dynastic by practice. The party came into existence in 1885 as a political platform in which the nationalist freedom struggle against colonial rule was fought by a galaxy of illustrious freedom fighters that ushered in Indian independence in 1947. In the post-independence period, as India held democratic elections since 1952, the Congress Party emerged as the dominant political force. Though Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, commanded overwhelming authority over the Congress Party and the governmental apparatus during his tenure till 1964, there is little palpable evidence to suggest that Nehru attempted dynastic succession at the helm of the party or government. Though Indira Gandhi served as the party president for one term in 1959, she didn’t command any overwhelming position of authority in the party amidst a host of other senior party leaders, many of whom were considered to be the potential successor of Nehru (Gopinath, 2019). After Nehru's death, there was no dynastic succession as senior Congress leader Lal Bahadur Shastri and not Indira was chosen as the next Prime Minister (Malhotra, 2004). After Shastri's death in 1966, Indira's ascension to the post of Prime Minister was a product of calculated political expediency of the senior Congress leaders for cornering another potential claimant to the PM's post, Morarji Desai, and intending to wield power by controlling Indira from behind the curtains (Frank, 2001). So, this also cannot be termed a quintessential dynastic succession. It is only after the split of the Congress Party in 1969 and the historic victory of the Congress Party (R) 9 in 1971 solely based on Indira Gandhi's popularity that the deinstitutionalisation of the organisational apparatus of the Congress Party started. This is due to the unassailable personality cult of Indira Gandhi who was handed over absolutely authority of the party, and this paved the way for her to sideline all other potential leaders in the party and project her sons, first Sanjay and then Rajiv, to be her immediate successors, establishing the firm grip of the Gandhi dynasty on the INC that continues till today.
Another example is a regional party from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which originally came into being in 1949 by its leader CN Annadurai and ‘began as the forebears of federalism, protesting against issues such as the Hindi imposition and Brahmin dominance to bolster their resistance to the Centre's sway over Tamil Nadu’ (Ramaseshan, 2020). However, after Annadurai's death, his successor M Karunanidhi took over control over the party and led the party for five decades until his death in 2018. He established his dynastic control over the party, making his younger son MK Stalin rise as his successor. 10 In both the cases, the party did not start with a single prominent leader who established dynastic control right from the beginning. In Congress's case, when its unbridled public appeal as the party that led Indian independence dwindled, internal rifts intensified and opposition parties became consolidated, Indira Gandhi's charisma became the lynchpin around which the party galvanised and rejuvenated itself, giving her the political headway and acceptability to project her sons as her successors. For DMK, when its Dravidian ideological politics based on social justice waned gradually, Karunanidhi's personal popularity made the party thrive and gave him the wherewithal for perpetuating dynastic rule in the party. In both cases, the overarching and well-entrenched ‘self-perpetuation of power’ by a powerful leader and his/her subsequent successors led to a habitual acceptance of dynastic rule in the party based on ‘historical path dependence’ which once established is extremely difficult to deviate from.
Dynastic by design
The second category of dynasty-led parties, those that can be termed ‘dynastic by design’, are most intrinsically structured for dynastic control. Examples of such parties are many in most Indian states. These are extremely powerful state-level parties founded primarily by an individual mostly from a humble background, and are premised entirely on the personal charisma and capability of the founding leader, who enjoys unquestioning dominance and the final say in the overall functioning of the party. Such parties are weakly institutionalised, with rules and procedures mostly being an extension of the will of the founding leader. These parties are mostly ethnic or regional identity-based parties led by a strong founding leader. They can be caste-based parties like Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD in Bihar and Mulayam Singh Yadav's SP in UP, 11 linguistic-religious identity-based party like Shiv Sena in Maharashtra 12 and Janata Dal (S) in Karnataka 13 or regional identity-based like TMC in Bengal, NC and PDP in Kashmir, TDP in Andhra Pradesh and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (formerly called Telangana Rashtra Samiti) in Telangana amongst many others. All such parties spontaneously fell into the hands of the family members of their all-powerful founder. This is because as a replacement of the towering founder leader, the party readily concurred with the wish of the founder to let the party be run by their progeny, as the dynast's ‘inherited charisma’ and ‘name recognition’ from the supreme leader will act as the only glue to keep the party together and mobilise public support. Such parties are institutionally weak without an alternative rung of credible leaders outside the founder's family or laid-down procedure for electing the next party leader through internal democratic competition. Malhotra (2004) observes regarding the caste-based dynastic parties that ‘Caste … combined with kinship by blood or marriage and reinforced by linguistic, regional, parochial and personal loyalties, Mandalisation has become the new millennium's mantra for not just the perpetuation of dynastic politics but also the birth of new dynasties’. He further notes that though these dynastic parties are mostly confined to a single state, the dynastic control is more deeply entrenched than in national parties like Congress. Such parties founded entirely on personal charisma coupled with community and kinship ties find it natural to advance family lineage through political succession within the leader's family. Thus, the ‘stranglehold of family and caste on the lives of most people accounts for dynastic strength and durability’ and provides a sociological institutionalist explanation for the dominance of 'dynastic by design' parties in India (Malhotra, 2004: 32–33). So, two dintinct patterns in the formation of dynasty-led parties in India can be highlighted here. In other words, dynasty-led parties come into being in two ways. First, there are parties that initially emerges on a broader ideological agenda and socio-political idea formed by a collective leadership without any initial predilecton towards founding a political dynasty. Only when such collective leadership, organisational robustness and ideological or social purpose dissipates with time or is eroded by an ambitious leader, such parties tend to turn dynastic under the complete control of the leader who seeks to establish dynastic hegemony over the party. Second, there are numerous parties that are founded by a charismatic individual leader premised upon his popular appeal and charisma without much autonomous and clear ldeological or ideational purpose or organisational robustness and hence the party gets intrinsically designed to revolve around the founder leader and his/her family for survival and motivation. Though both types of parties similarly becomes dynasty-led political outfit, its inclination towards dynasticim takes place due to distinctive factors and circumstances which needs to be understood.
Factors behind the resilience of dynasty-led parties
In the last few years, most dynasty-led parties in Indian states have been at the threshold of a generational shift as the earlier generation of power-wielding dynastic party leaders or founding party leaders have gradually been waning due to death, age or retirement. This is a time when many major dynasty-led parties are witnessing a new set of younger dynasts taking control of the party, putting their political ability to survive and prosper to test (Verma, 2020). Congress witnessed the passing of the baton from Sonia Gandhi to Rahul Gandhi, SP's control shifted from its patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav to Akhilesh Yadav, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav passed party control to younger son Tejaswi Yadav, HD Kumaraswamy consolidated party control from his father, HD Deve Gowda, MK Stalin took over DMK after Karunanidhi's death and Uddhav Thackrey bequeathed leadership of Shiv Sena after patriarch Bal Thackrey's demise, to name a few major transitions. The electoral performance of the parties led by these dynasts has been mixed and there are instances in which the parties have witnessed major electoral reversals, especially in the national elections, for instance in 2019 on facing a massive challenge from the politically ascendant BJP (Ghosh and Jha, 2019). The Congress Party at the national level is the most glaring example in this regard and has been facing steady political decline since 2014 under the new-generation dynast Rahul Gandhi who was later joined by her sister Priyanka Gandhi (Ramachandran, 2019). However, the authority and command of the dynasts over these parties has remained largely unflinching, making them appear almost ‘performance-immune’. Though there have been instances of voices of dissent and defection of disillusioned middle-rung leaders from the parties, none of these dynastic leaderships have witnessed any serious challenge to their control over the party from any credible leader outside the dynasty. The only exception is Uddhav Thackeray's leadership in Shiv Sena which was challenged by another senior party leader, Eknath Shinde, from outside the Thackeray family and succeded in spliting the party in June 2022 and became Chief Minister of Maharastra by ousting Uddhav with BJP's support. But, it needs to be seen if over the long-run, Eknath Shinde's revolt actually can wrest complete control of the Shiv Sena from the Thackeray family or the Thackerays would eventually reconsolidate their grip over the party after this setback (Menon, 2022). However, barring this exception, such unaccountable command of these powerful dynasties over the party affairs, despite many instances of laggardly electoral performance, can be attributed to the serious lack of inner-party democracy in most Indian parties. The enduring dynastic dominance over party affairs is one consequence of the structural pathologies of Indian parties having three dimensions: i) absence of ideational/organisational coherence, ii) lack of strong second-rung leadership outside the dynasty iii) the dynasty's access to party's finances.
First, these dynasty-led parties have remained under the clutches of a single political dynasty or an individual powerful leader bereft of much enduring ideological, ideational or organisational bulwark to mobilise the electorate. Hence the dynastic leaders or the progeny of the popular founding leader of these parties remained the sole unifying force around which the party unites itself and inspires its lower-rung leadership and ground-level cadres. Even in the case of parties founded by some ideals of social justice movements, regional interests or other ethnic foundations, such ideals have been solely articulated through the imagery of the highest leader and later on through the leader's dynastic successor.
Second, as the highest leadership strongly commands absolute control over the parties for a long period of time, no credible second rung of leadership within the party is allowed to grow that can challenge the topmost leadership and their dynasty. Most party leaders, confronted with such insecurity regarding their own position and apprehension regarding the fate of their party, rely mostly on their own family members and nominate them to run the party after them. This problem is more acute for the state-level smaller parties which the founding leaders have built with their own hard work rising from humble origins as ‘political entrepreneurs’ and who treat the party as their ‘family firm’. They are unwilling to hand it over to anyone outside the family so that power and privileges emanating out of it remain within the family bloodline. Also, in the absence of any institutionalised procedure for electing the party leadership, dynastic succession becomes a ‘natural’ phenomenon with broad consensus within the party, which also prevents factional fights over leadership (Tewari, 2021).
Third, as elections in a vast country like India require huge expense, political parties are often reservoirs of massive finances instrumental for making the party a viable contender in the political competition. In the dynasty-led parties, the access to such huge financial resources is vested within the family of the top leadership. Hence, as the strings of the party purse remain in their control, their authority over the party also remains unblemished (Chhibber, 2013; Ghosh and Jha, 2019; Malhotra, 2004).
Conditions for greater leadership accountability in dynasty-led parties
Despite many challenges, quite a few dynasty-led parties under the leadership of new-generation dynasts have emerged as a formidable political force in quite a few states in India. In recent years, Tejaswi Yadav, in the absence of Lalu Prasad, gave a formidable fight to the ruling coalition in the state of Bihar in 2020 Assembly elections. Akhilesh Yadav, after consolidating power in the party and facing electoral setback, rejuvenated the party and emerged as a potential contender to the powerful ruling party, BJP, in 2022 state elections in UP. MK Stalin, after the demise of his father Karunanidhi, led the party to victory in Tamil Nadu in 2021, and Uddhav Thackeray took control of the party after Bal Thackeray and became the Chief Minister of Maharashtra by strategic alliance building and remained in power until the party split in June 2022 (Mishra, 2021). On the other hand, the Congress Party, despite its national presence and organisational spread all over the country, has continued to face political decline in the last decade under the new generation of the Gandhi dynasty. So, it is important to raise the question of why some dynastic parties and their leadership are more successful than others. Here, two possible arguments are offered: intensity of political vulnerability of the dynastic leadership and intra-dynastic competition within the party. First, the stakes of political survival are different for different dynastic leaderships. The Gandhis, who led a national party as big as Congress, enjoy a much deeper immunity against political vulnerability. This is because they are at the helm of the national opposition party, which despite its rapidly shrinking political clout, has presence all over the country and also occupies power in some of the states. The party high command comprising the Gandhis still enjoys the power to appoint and replace Chief Ministers in Congress-ruled states and distributes patronage in the form of influential party positions in different state units. So, even out of power, Gandhis surrounded by their loyalists and with remaining political clout and resources do not completely feel alienated from power and influence despite electoral debacles (Guha, 2012). On the other hand, the state-level dynastic parties which have a limited sphere of functioning confined to one state feel the heat of losing power much more acutely, since after remaining out of power in their state for a considerable period, they lose their political armour, privileges and also their ability to distribute patronage to the different party functionaries, which is crucial to keep their own authority and the party's unity intact. Hence, their much greater political vulnerability and higher stakes in languishing out of power might exert pressure for greater accountability and performance.
Second, most of the state-based dynastic parties, though enjoying limited resistance from any credible non-dynastic leader of the party, have faced stiff competition from within the family from a person with an equally compelling claim to leadership, leading to many intra-dynastic competitions within dynasty-led parties. Challenge faced by MK Stalin from his brother Alagiri, resistance that Tejaswi Yadav of RJD withstood from his brother Tej Pratap Yadav, churning in NCP's Pawar family, the alienation of Bal Thackeray's nephew Raj Thakeray from Shiv Sena over the succession rift, conflict between the Chautala brothers of INLD in Haryana, the succession battle between Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav, are some for the major examples of intra-dynastic conflict over leadership succession in the dynastic parties (Ashraf, 2018a, 2018b; Kulkarni, 2019). Such intra-dynastic competition for party leadership positions also acts as pressure on the incumbent dynastic leadership to perform electorally and legitimise their leadership position over other rebel relatives in the party. There is a possibility that in the face of such intra-dynastic resistance, dynasts who cannot perform well in keeping the party together or making it win elections might lose the pole position to another assertive family member within the party. The unceremonious exit of the young dynast Chirag Paswan, son of the founder of LJP, was engineered by his own uncle who took over the party after Chirag failed to lead it to an impressive electoral performance and manage internal squabbles (Tewari, 2021). In case of Congress, such pressure of intra-dynastic resistance on the incumbent leadership is absent, as there are no competing claims to the leadership position from within the members of the Gandhi family since Maneka Gandhi's unsuccessful attempts to inherit her husband Sanjay's legacy instead of Rajiv's rise in the party in early 1980s. Hence, the leadership's accountability to perform is never directly challenged by anyone within or outside the Gandhi dynasty, keeping dynastic leadership firmly entrenched to power despite massive electoral reversals.
Both types of dynastic parties – dynastic by practice and dynastic by design – have deeply-rooted dominance of a single family over the party's leadership position either through historical path dependence or the sociological foundational dynamics of many parties. Though such resilience of dynastic leadership, despite underperformance, is due to the structural and functional dynamics of these parties, dynastic leaders in some parties perform under pressures of accountability which is absent in other parties.
Conclusion
The article attempted to de-hyphenate the phenomenon of dynastic representation from dynasty-led parties in order to have a nuanced understanding of both these dimensions of dynastic politics in India. The article reveals that dynastic representation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in most parties, in those led by dynastic leadership as well as those not. This is attributed to the internal structural dynamics of political parties that involves centralised mode of functioning, makes nomination of a large number of dynastic candidates possible in the elections. Also, the idiosyncrasies of India's electoral political landscape at the grassroots level ensure winnability of dynastic candidates in parliamentary elections. As dynastic candidates are seen to have greater ‘winning attributes’, greater influence to get party tickets and can defuse dissent and defection at the local level, parties nominate them as candidates in elections. Such dynastic candidates are also preferred by a large section of electorates at the constituency level due to the structural advantages of name recognition, networks and resources that they enjoy in many seats compared to non-dynasts. So, though the general political rhetoric against dynastic politics appears to be dominant in the contemporary political discourse, dynastic representation in parliament from all parties continues unabated. Due to lack of inner-party democracy in India's political parties and lack of a robust regulatory framework for democratising party functioning, ticket distribution to candidates is done largely arbitrarily in a centralised manner by a narrow coterie of party leaders. This adversely impacts the democratic principle of equal opportunity to enter politics for talented non-dynasts to some extent. But as Chandra observed, dynastic representation also acts as an inclusive quota for accommodating marginalised sections like women, lower-caste and minority representatives who are otherwise mostly excluded from direct participation in the political fray. However, the disproprtionate level of influence over and access to power and resources that gives entry level advantage to the dynastic candidates in fighting and winning elections undoubtedly enfeebles the principle of equal opportunity in political participation for the non-dynastic and non-elite leaders. The phenomenon of dynasty-led parties is dealt with separately in this article as it reflects a different structural and foundational pathology endemic to how these parties have been created and/or how these party have evoled with time. For better understanding of how dynastic leadership became entrenched in these parties, two typologies of dynasty-led parties in India are provided in the article- the ‘dynastic by practise' parties are referred to the ones which originated with a broad-based purpose and collective leadership but fell into the path of dynastic leadership later due to certain ideational and organisational weaknesses; the ‘dynastic by design' parties are founded by a charismatic leader without long-term autonomous ldeological or ideational purpose or organisational robustness making the party completely subservient to the founder-leader amd his/her family members right from its formation. The article further explains how dynastic leadership remains resilient regardless of electoral reversals due to certain institutional lacunas of these political parties that make their existence firmly contingent upon the dynastic leadership. The article adds a layer to this by arguing that dynastic leadership in some parties not only performs efficiently but also faces accountability challenges due to political vulnerability and intra-dynastic competition over leadership position in these parties. The parties, by perpetuating dynastic leadership, block talented leaders from below from occupying the highest leadership positions, compromising the democratic principle of political equality in democratic politics. But, as most of these parties have structurally designed or founded themselves based on dynastic leadership or has transformed as dynastic due to historical path dependence at some point in time the weakening of these dynasties might lead to irreversible factional fights and disintegration of parties if such change doesn’t happen organically from within. Many of these parties, despite their internal non-democratic leadership selection, are powerful political forces with large support bases that contribute to the electoral competitiveness and vibrancy of the Indian party system and democracy. So, legal prescriptions or institutional reforms wont be adequate in democratising the dynasty-led parties unless the political culture within these parties and in India's electoral landscape alters the foundational and historical factors that perpetuates dynastic control of the leadership of these parties. Hence, dynastic representation is a function of a centralised nomination process in most parties and local electoral dynamics, while dynastic leadership has been a product of structural deficiencies of those dynastic parties. The study made an attempt to make a differentiated analysis of dynastic politics in India. It will be crucial to further investigate and explain this dimension of dynatic politics in India for better comprehension of its nuances.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Political Dialogue Asia.
