ON the hottest day of 2005, I was forced away from my home town, Bangalore – at its balmy best in June – to attend a meeting in New Delhi. When I boarded the plane the outside temperature was 22 degrees Celsius; when I disembarked in Palam it was 45 degrees. I was muttering imprecations to myself through the ride into the city, through the meeting in Shastri Bhavan, through dinner at the boarding-house where I was staying and, for all I know, right through my sleep as well. It was only next morning that I cheered up. For one thing, before noon I would be winging my way back to Bangalore. For another, the newspaper that day printed a photograph of a group of young Indians who were much more under the weather than I was. And apparently quite willingly, too.

These were a band of Congress chamchas who had gathered outside 10 Janpath, to greet Rahul Gandhi on his 36th birthday. Dressed in white, they were lined up in rows, the vanguard holding up, for the photographers to see, a 50 kg cake inscribed for their beloved leader.

The chamchas had gathered around the Gandhi home early in the morning, and stayed on until dusk. My meeting had been rather dreary, but I noted (to my satisfaction) that these fellows had a duller day still. (As well as a much hotter one – at least my room was airconditioned.) They had periodically sent messages through the watchmen asking their hero to step out, and periodically stirred themselves to shout: ‘Desh ka neta kaisa ho/Rahul Gandhi jaisa ho.’ But however hard they tried Rahul bhayya would not come, though whether it was out of embarrassment (justified) or fear of the heat (even more justified), the report did not say. By the time the chamchas departed, the remains of their cake were seen to be running a rather gooey line from 10 Janpath, quite a long way down in the direction of Connaught Place.

Not that the cake-carriers could ever bring themselves to refer to that part of New Delhi by its original name. Connaught Place and Connaught Circus is how I know those graceful rings, but these names were changed in an earlier Congress regime to ‘Rajiv Chowk’ (the inner ring) and ‘Indira Chowk’ (the outer one). In a tearful speech in Parliament, a Congress M.P. announced that this was done so that in death, as in life, Indira would forever hold Rajiv in her embrace. For the ordinary folk of Delhi, Connaught Place (and Circus) remain de rigueur, but for all members of the Congress those older names are, of course, verboten.

 

And the rush to name ever more places after the Family continues. Not long ago, I was a participant in a TV debate on the renaming of the new Hyderabad airport after Rajiv Gandhi. I suggested that one could name the airport after a genuinely great figure, such as the composer Thyagaraja, a choice that would be applauded across party-political lines. In any case, it was time we went beyond remembering only one family. Somewhere along the line, in response to a term I had used, the other member of the panel, a still serving Union minister, said: ‘We are happy to be Congress chamchas.’

The term the minister proudly owned is part of our political lexicon. I have myself used it here in the knowledge that the readers of Seminar shall know exactly what I am referring to. Still, it might be helpful to more precisely date and define it. ‘Chamcha’ is a Hindustani word whose nearest English equivalent is ‘sycophant’. There have been chamchas since the birth of the Indic civilization – the Lords Rama and Krishna are alleged to have had countless such – but there have been Congress chamchas only since about the year 1969. Contrary to what the term might suggest, it does not connote loyalty to the party in general but to the family which now leads it in particular.

 

Most Indians are too young to know this, but the truth is that till about 1969 the Congress was a more-or-less democratic party. The great leaders of the freedom struggle – Gokhale, Tilak, Bose, Gandhi, and others – had followers and admirers, but these were not publicly slavish in their sycophancy. The same was the case with Jawaharlal Nehru, who kept his distance from courtiers and flatterers.

Nehru did not much like chamchas; and, contrary to a widely accepted myth, Nehru did not start a ‘dynasty’ either. He had no wish, nor desire, nor hope, nor expectation, that his daughter Indira would ever become prime minister. In a book published in 1960, the widely respected editor, Frank Moraes, wrote that ‘There is no question of Nehru’s attempting to create a dynasty of his own; it would be inconsistent with his character and career.’ This was (and is) entirely correct. When Nehru died in 1964, an otherwise bitter critic, D.F. Karaka, nonetheless praised his resolve ‘not to indicate any preference with regard to his successor. This, [Nehru] maintained, was the privilege of those who were left behind. He himself was not concerned with that issue.’

True, in her father’s lifetime Indira Gandhi was made President of the Indian National Congress. But after a single term in this post she retreated to domestic life. There she stayed for five years, with no wish, nor desire, nor hope, nor expectation, that she would assume a post of importance in Indian political life. Indeed, on 8 May 1964, Indira Gandhi wrote to her friend Dorothy Norman that ‘the whole question of my future is bothering me. I feel I must settle outside India at least for a year or so…’

Three weeks later Nehru died. The new Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, now appointed Indira Gandhi Minister of Information and Broadcasting, this more a gesture to the memory of her father than an acknowledgement of merit or capability. When Shastri died in January 1966, she was, to her own surprise, catapulted into the post of prime minister. There were other and better candidates for the job, but the Congress bosses (notably K. Kamaraj) thought that they could more easily control a lady they thought to be a gungi gudiya (dumb doll).

 

It turned out otherwise. In power Indira Gandhi displayed a streak of ruthlessness few had seen in her before. She split the Congress, threw out the bosses, and with the slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’ re-fashioned her-self as a saviour of the poor. Now the once democratic and decentralized Congress party became, in effect, an extension of a single individual. I recently came across an article entitled ‘Mummy Knows Best’, published in the now defunct New Delhi journal, Thought, in October 1971. In recent weeks, Indira Gandhi had sacked two chief ministers. First it was Mohan Lal Sukhadia in Rajasthan, then Brahmananda Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. As Thought wrote, it mattered little who would succeed Reddy in Andhra. For ‘he that ascends the gaddi will have to look for his survival to the lady in Delhi rather than to the legislators in Hyderabad or the constituents in Andhra at large.’

While she was growing into her new job, Indira Gandhi’s two sons were trying out careers of their own. The elder boy, Rajiv, after having followed his mother in having failed to complete a degree, took a pilot’s license and joined Indian Airlines. The younger boy, Sanjay, prudently chose not to go to university at all. He apprenticed at Rolls Royce, where his lack of discipline provoked a flood of anguished correspondence between his mother and the Indian High Commission in London, who were naturally worried about the repercussions of the son’s waywardness on the reputation of the prime minister.

 

In time Sanjay returned to India, and sought to set up a car factory of his own. He said he would manufacture not limousines but a ‘people’s car’ named Maruti. Despite the gift of cheap land (from a sycophantic chief minister of Haryana) and soft loans from public sector banks, the project failed to deliver on its promises. Another of Sanjay’s chamchas, the editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, claimed that his factory would roll out 50,000 cars a year. ‘Soon little Marutis should be seen on the roads of Haryana and Delhi,’ wrote the editor: ‘and a month or two later they will be running between Kalimpong and Kanyakumari.’

As it happened, Sanjay Gandhi’s factory did not produce a single roadworthy car. (The little Marutis that now run on Indian roads are based on the Japanese design of a standard Suzuki vehicle.) It seems that Sanjay anticipated this for, in 1975, when his factory was yet to be completed, he went in search of another career. He had not to search very far; no further than his own home, in fact. Indira Gandhi had just imposed the Emergency; to keep it going she needed support, and her younger son was happy to provide it. He soon showed that he enjoyed authority even more than Indira Gandhi herself. Some of the more notorious events of the Emergency, such as the forced sterilizations and the demolitions of homes in Old Delhi, were perceived to be the handiwork of Sanjay.

 

By the time the Emergency ended Sanjay Gandhi had discarded any pretence of being a maker of cars. Henceforth it was all politics for him. He fought two Lok Sabha elections, became General Secretary to the Congress, and served as his mother’s deputy on all matters concerning the party and (from January 1980) the government. But then in June of that year he died in an air crash. The mother, bereft, turned to her elder son to take Sanjay’s place.

While Sanjay was alive, Rajiv Gandhi had shown no inclination to join politics. His ambition apparently was to graduate from flying Avros on the Delhi-Lucknow run to flying Boeings between Calcutta and Bombay. By June 1980 he had been flying for twelve years, but his record did not yet merit the promotion he so ardently desired. He was rather luckier in politics. Once he had answered Mummy’s call, and changed his career, the rewards were swift. In less than five years of joining the Congress he had become Prime Minister of India.

Before he joined politics Rajiv Gandhi was known to be a gentle character. But after he joined politics he quickly took to the authoritarian ways of his mother and brother. I recall him visiting Bangalore in the late 1980s, and giving a press conference at the airport on his way out. At some stage a journalist summarized the views on some subject of the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Veerendra Patil, a veteran freedom fighter and first-rate administrator. Rajiv Gandhi’s response was to say: ‘If that is what Patel believed, he would no longer be Chief Minister.’ Within a day or two this indeed came to pass.

The greatly reduced majorities of the Congress nowadays mean that its leader cannot be anywhere near as arrogant. Yet crucial positions are still decided on the basis of personal loyalty rather than professional competence. To get their job and retain it, Union ministers and chief ministers belonging to the Congress have to depend on the will and whim of the First Family. But the culture of sycophancy percolates right through the party and into the wider world beyond. Thus high posts in the civil service and diplomatic corps, as well as prestigious academic positions, are often allocated on the basis of a candidate’s closeness – real or imagined – to the Family. Say you are a professor or judge who is keen on a particular job. Then, if you lobby A who is close to B who is friendly with C who is known to be in the inner circle of the First Family – then, if you work away and are fortunate, you might even get that assignment.

 

The dynastic principle has damaged the workings of India’s pre-eminent political party, and beyond, the workings of Indian democracy itself. One manifestation is, as remarked above, the filling of important positions on the basis of chamchagiri rather than competence. Another is that Indira Gandhi’s embrace of the dynastic principle for the Congress served as a ready model for other parties to emulate. With the exception of the cadre-based parties of Left and Right, the CPM and the BJP, all political parties in India have been converted into family firms. The DMK was once the proud party of Dravidian nationalism and social reform; its cadres are now resigned to the fact that Karunanidhi’s son will succeed him, or else his nephew. For all his professed commitment to Maharashtrian pride and Hindu nationalism, when picking the next Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray could look no further than his son. The Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal claim to stand for ‘social justice’, but we know that Mulayam shall be succeeded by his son, Laloo by his wife and, in time, by one of their children. The practice has been extended down the system, so that if a sitting M.P. dies, only his son or daughter can be nominated in his place.

 

Years ago, in his final, summing-up speech to the Constituent Assembly, B.R. Ambedkar had warned Indians about the unthinking submission to charismatic authority. Ambedkar quoted John Stuart Mill, who cautioned citizens ‘not to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions.’ There was, said Ambedkar, ‘nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country.’ But there were ‘limits to gratefulness.’ Quoting the Irish patriot Daniel O’Connell, Ambedkar said that ‘No man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty.’

This warning was even more pertinent here than in Ireland or England. For in India, noted Ambedkar, ‘Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be the road to the salvation of a soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.’

This was spoken in 1949, a year and some months after the death of the most worshipped of Indian politicians, Mahatma Gandhi. Fortunately, Gandhi’s heir, Jawaharlal Nehru, took Ambedkar’s warning with some seriousness. He based his policies on procedures and principles, rather than on the force of his personality. Within the Congress, within the Cabinet, within the Parliament, Nehru tried to further the democratic, cooperative, collaborative ideals of the Indian Constitution. The judiciary, the bureaucracy, and the press were given full autonomy; there was no attempt to force them to do the Leader’s bidding. In his long tenure as Prime Minister, Nehru did not impose chief ministers of his liking on Congress-ruled states; these were chosen by the local legislators alone. In all this, Nehru was working against the grain of history, against the deep-seated feudal and hierarchical tendencies in Indian society. Indeed, his own party, his bureaucracy, his press, would still tend to sometimes treat him as if he had the attributes of the divine.

 

Nehru might not have entirely succeeded in building a democratic, non-hierarchical culture in Indian politics. But it is notable that he tried. Which cannot, however, be said for his daughter Indira Gandhi or his grandsons, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi. One cannot really say this about the current head of the Congress, either. Thus, shortly after the UPA government came to power, Sonia Gandhi’s birthday was celebrated at a well-attended function in New Delhi as ‘Tyag Divas’. Here, one speaker claimed that she embodied the virtues of the Buddha, Ashoka, and Mahatma Gandhi. Were this an ordinary Congress chamcha one might perhaps have disregarded it, but the person making these outrageous comparisons was the Union home minister, no less.

Loyalty to the Leader, in person, rather than to the policies of his or her government – such was the legacy of Indira Gandhi, to be furthered and distorted by her progeny, and by leaders of other parties too. What Gandhi did at the Centre was exceeded in the provinces, where the likes of M.G. Ramachandran and N.T. Rama Rao created leadership cults that might have impressed Joseph Stalin himself. Their initiatives in this regard have been taken even further by Bal Thackeray and J. Jayalalithaa, who have used the bhakti of their followers in dangerously undemocratic ways. Those who disagree with them in public have every chance of being physically attacked, as has been the experience of journalists in Mumbai and lawyers in Tamil Nadu.

 

This article is being written to deplore the dynasty’s role in the degradation of Indian democracy, but also to clear Jawaharlal Nehru of the false and motivated charge that he had anything to do with its creation. It was Indira Gandhi who founded the dynasty; she brought her sons into the Congress, and made it clear to all, within and outside the party, that she expected them to succeed her.

There is another, and perhaps more consequential reason, to separate Nehru from later generations of the family. It is this; whereas for him joining politics was a matter of commitment and sacrifice, for the others politics has served as a comfortable safety net. Jawaharlal could have been a successful lawyer, or an internationally renowned writer; he chose to fight for the freedom of his country instead. The cases of Sanjay, Rajiv, and Rahul are all too different. After having failed to distinguish themselves in other fields, they took their mother’s advice to enter the family business – where there was a place reserved for them at the very top.