Daily Times

When I was a child, my grandmother would often tell us a saying by King Farouk of Egypt, which goes something like this: “Soon there will only be five kings left — the king of England, the king of spades, the king of clubs, the king of hearts and the king of diamonds.” This quote is a reflection of the state of monarchies in the post-industrial revolutionary world. However, with rampant economic activity, this quote may be stretched to political dynasties as well and the Congress debacle may just be an indicator of the fate of India’s dominant political dynasty. This happened in the aftermath of the 2013 elections in Pakistan where Pakistan’s leading political dynasty also had its lowest vote share in decades.

It merits analysing the causes of decline of political dynasties in the post-industrialisation world but, before analysing, I want to make it clear that I am not passing an absolute judgment on the end of political dynasties. As we will see, the decline of dynasties is a result of underlying socio-economic factors and if these factors are addressed, it may result in the revival of the respective dynasties.

Also, before we move on to analysing these causes, it is important to understand why those dynasties emerged in the first place. In South Asia, dynasties emerged as unifying figures for heterogeneous societies. They comprised charismatic leaders who brought in a combination of affirmative action and national agenda to appeal to the masses and, in the process, bridged the socio-economic polarisation of their respective societies. Be it the Gandhis of India or the Bhuttos of Pakistan, both emphasised the economic wellbeing of marginalised communities and, in most cases, stood for the protection of ethno-religious minorities. In post-colonial South Asia, both the Gandhis and Bhuttos emphasised central economic planning and socialist policies to spread the economic dough to a broader national spectrum.

The subcontinent, when it became polarised along religious lines between the Hindus and Muslims, always had the tendency to be dominated by religious forces. Even before partition, both Jinnah and the Congress tried to be moderate and secular fronts to these more extremist tendencies emerging out of this polarisation. In independent India and Pakistan, this role was taken up by the Gandhis and Bhuttos. However, both these families used economic opportunity as their primary selling point and leveraging that promoted a more inclusive, secular ethos. This combination of economic agenda, uplift of the economically marginalised and inclusion of ethno-religious minorities allowed these dynasties to enjoy popular support among both the majority and minority communities.

However, two things have changed as a result of the expansion of the Indian and Pakistani economies. First, less and less people are left economically marginalised as more people move from extremely poor to lower-middle and middle-income brackets. Secondly, with economic liberalisation, the common man sees economic opportunities around him and wants a share of them. Thus the era of central planning and doling out money to the marginalised is over. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s policy of seeking economic migration for workers to the Gulf lifted many out of poverty. Subsequent economic liberalisation initiated by the Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto regimes ended up creating economic opportunities and a strong middle class. Thus the biggest segment of strength for dynasties, the economically marginalised, started shrinking. And dynasties never adjust well to this changing reality. In fact, the focus of their economic programme had been on doling out money to the marginalised and focusing on the uplift of the poorest. In a changed economic landscape, this created the space for alternatives to rise on the right of these dynasties.

Second, religious polarisation had to led to stronger currents of religiosity in both India and Pakistan. Thus, secular tendencies kept mellowing as time passed. With rising religious fervour in both India and Pakistan, both the Bhuttos and Gandhis found themselves pressed hard. In the absence of an opportunity-based economic agenda in industrialising India and Pakistan, the Gandhis and Bhuttos are finding themselves exposed to the rise of religious fervour.

And that merits another question: can the dynasties of Indo-Pak bounce back? Just when one cannot answer this with certainty, certain corrections, surely, will make it more likely for them to bounce back. For one, dynasties will need to be more inclusive in sharing power, even within their respective parties. They will need to bring on board the representatives of the new power centres of businessmen, professionals, traders, opinion makers, industrialists, academics, etc. And all these representatives do demand equal treatment in decision making. Secondly, dynasties will need to focus on a revised economic agenda that is both inclusive and also offers the masses the opportunities of a free market. In the last election that these dynasties fought, they wrongly based their campaigns on their secular credentials rather than on their economic agenda. And if the results are anything to go by, in the enhanced religious fervour and economic liberalisation of South Asia, secularism is not a sellable commodity. Most people may be agnostic to the issue of secularism or may even support a secular ethos but the overriding concern for the masses is the economic agenda, and dynasties should have understood this — yesterday.

Congress’s route from UP and Bihar and the PPP’s route from central and northern Punjab in the 1990s shows that dynasties find it hard to reclaim lost ground. So, it will be an uphill task for the political dynasties of Pakistan and India to reclaim their lost lustre. But then, in the hope for a new economic and social deal, one can keep looking to them to revive their fortunes.

The writer is a freelance columnist and may be followed on Twitter @aalimalik