The day the shutters came down on the world’s longest-serving, democratically-elected Communist regime is also likely to be remembered as the day a new incarnation of the demon-slayer goddess Durga descended on Bengal. Mamata Banerjee is the new Durga—earlier Didi, she is now a mother figure in the making to millions of Bengalis for whom paribartan also means the rebirth of Bengal. “Even if you’re a big politician’s son, the family name can help only a bit,” says Saugata Roy, senior TMC leader and Union Minister of State for Urban Development. “Ultimately it has to be tested at the touchstone of elections. Mamata Banerjee didn’t have the backing of a powerful political family. Unlike Mayawati and Jayalalithaa, she didn’t have a mentor either. She came up on her own.” Unlike the other ‘Durga’ of 1971—Indira Gandhi—Mamata has no dynasty to claim as her own, no father who prepared her for political life and no sons to follow the charmed and stormy path of statecraft. Down south, another woman ascended the throne in Chennai, its notorious family of former occupants exiled to a continent of uncertainty and retribution. Jayalalithaa, the Amma of Tamil Nadu who has also become the ‘Didi’ of the south—her most popular campaign line was “as your loving sister I have come to your doorstep”—is another politician who has no progeny to shoulder her legacy. The one who comes closest to family is Sasikala, whose nephew Sudhakaran she had adopted as her foster son. The two reportedly fell out after the AIADMK rout of 1996, and Jayalalithaa banished him from her home in Poes Garden though she remained steadfast to her soul sister Sasikala. “Unlike Karunanidhi, who has not one but two wives, I don’t have a family,” Jayalalithaa had remarked in a previous interview. “So Sasikala takes care of me and my home.”
Last week, the Tamil voter came forward to bring Amma back to Chennai from the gladed retreat of her favourite Kodaikanal estate. The Jayatsunami was created by powerful popular disgust against one of the most corrupt political families of Indian politics—the Karunanidhi clan. Not that there aren’t corruption charges against Jayalalithaa, just as there are against the other heirless warrior queen Mayawati, whose assets, according to a declaration in 2010 are worth Rs 87 crore. When the CBI prosecuted her for corruption, Mayawati bitterly claimed that her wealth—that included land, gold and cash—was from donations made by adoring party workers. “Neither the charges of corruption nor her uninhibited display of silk, diamonds and currency garlands affect her Dalit support base,” points out sociologist Upendra Sharma. In her autobiography called Mere Sangharshmai Jeevan evum Bahujan Samaj ka Safarnama, Mayawati wrote: “Agar mera koi bhai ya behan kisi kaam se aaye to aap use bhaga dena. Mera pariwar to bas Dalit Samaj aur Bahujan Samaj hi hai (please do not entertain any of my kin who come to you misusing my name).” It’s partly true: despite having five brothers, three sisters and parents still alive, Mayawati has not appointed any of them as office-bearers of the BSP; neither did she give them party tickets to contest elections nor send them to the Rajya Sabha. Mayawati has lived alone in Lucknow for years, whether she is the chief minister or not.
THE SINGLE TRUMP CARD
Apart from Mamata, Mayawati and Jayalalithaa, the other prominent heirless leaders in Indian politics are Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his Orissa counterpart Naveen Patnaik and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Nitish’s son is a yoga instructor, who has displayed no desire to be a politician so far. What is the difference between these politicians and their peers? Does the fact that no second generation awaits to be groomed as political heirs make them more committed leaders? Does it make them more honest than a Lalu or a Karunanidhi; or at least less corrupt? Does their solitude make them more secretive since they are their own best counsel? Does the lofty eyrie of their integrity turn them into dictators? What drives these singular singles?
Ratan Mukherjee, Mamata’s long-time aide since she entered Parliament in 1984, says: “Her being single helped Mamata in many ways. She is single-minded about her political agenda—which was getting West Bengal rid of the CPI(M). Politics is her only passion.” During her campaign to demolish Bengal’s ‘Red Fort’, Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee was in charge of her party’s Internet campaign, but was not a TMC candidate. The furious reaction of Bengalis to CPI(M) leader Sunit Kumar’s disdainful remarks about Mamata’s marital status during the poll campaign showed that her singledom only evoked admiration and sympathy. Born to a small-time trader, Mamata had entered politics to fulfill the dreams of her father, a Congress worker. She emerged a giant killer in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections when on a Congress ticket, she defeated the indomitable Somnath Chatterjee. Mamata stuck to her roots in spite of her gradual rise to power. “The words courage and conviction are easy to pronounce, but difficult to practice. But she did it,” says TMC leader Partha Chatterjee, who has been her political companion since college. He points out that Mamata leads a simple life; she doesn’t wear lipstick and none of her saris cost more than Rs 500. In October 2007, an agitated Didi left her Kalighat home and shifted to TMC Bhawan after a tiff with brother, Amit, reportedly angry with him for misusing her name for personal gain. She said, “To connect with the people, a person in public life should distance himself from his own family.” Jayalalithaa earned public sympathy when the DMK alleged that she had stopped the popular government scheme offering marriage assistance to poor girls because she herself is unmarried.
DICTATORS OR RECLUSES?
A common trait shared by all successful single politicians is that they run their political outfits as personal fiefdoms and have not allowed a second rank of leadership to grow. “These leaders are full of insecurities,” says Saugata Roy. However, one political bachelor who shows no sign of insecurity is Modi. The RSS pracharak-turned-BJP politician’s image of an ascetic statesman was evident from the day he assumed power in October 1991. The son of a small town businessman in Vadnagar town of Mehsana district in Gujarat, Modi has rarely visited his family since he joined the RSS at age 18—except once when his father died. “He never attends marriages or social functions in his family,” says Prahlad Bhai, who lives next door to the Modi family’s ancestral house in Modi gully. One brother runs a PDS shop in Ahmedabad while the other is a clerk in the information department of the Gujarat government. “He has never encouraged any of his relatives to share the limelight. Nor has he granted them any favours,” asserts one of his close associates. Modi lives unassisted by a retinue of servants in Gandhinagar; BJP leaders recount how he makes tea for visitors himself. Mostly at home after work, Modi prefers the company of a few trusted aides to family members.
Similar to Modi in this respect is Patnaik. He goes to work late and comes home late, and usually retires to his library after dinner with a book. Once he used to accept dinner invitations to the homes of a select few in Bhubaneswar, but only after reportedly clearing the guest list! Now he prefers to spend evenings mostly alone, apart from the occasional small dinners he has for a few political friends and journalists. In Patnaik’s case, one reason for his popularity is his bachelorhood. Though himself a product of dynastic succession, Patnaik has assiduously created an aura around him by keeping his kin away from politics and Orissa, unlike former Orissa chief minister Nandini Satpathy, whose husband and son also took to politics. Satpathy Sr was a two -time MP from Dhenkanal constituency in 1971 and 1977, replaced later by son Tathagat who has since won thrice on a BJD ticket. “The people of Orissa reason that Naveen babu has no family involved in politics and therefore there is no question of nepotism,” says Baijayant Panda, the BJD MP from Kendrapara. He echoes the common refrain in Orissa that Patnaik has no one to fend for; hence there is no need for him to accumulate wealth through improper means. In Bihar, they say the same about Nitish—a widower with a son—who has gone out of the way to cultivate a “single” leader’s image by scrupulously keeping family away from politics. He won a second term on the development plank, but the absence of nepotism helped; the contrast between Lalu whose family ran both the state and the party into the ground through corruption and Nitish is stark.
When it comes to contrast, no two leaders can be more outwardly dissimilar than Jayalalithaa and Mayawati. One was a glamorous actress while the other was a school teacher; one is a Brahmin who rules Dravidian politics while the other is a Dalit who keeps Brahmin advisors in her ranks. Yet, what is common to both is absolute autocracy and a distrust of the world in general. Both are revered as political divinity by their followers. While their mentors—MGR to Jayalalithaa and Kanshi Ram to Mayawati—had projected them as their successors, neither has indicated who will inherit their respective mantles. Both rarely give interviews, and their party leaders refuse to make public statements without their leader’s permission. Mayawati is Our Lady of the Statues, carved in granite for posterity while Jayalalithaa is the regal figure on the balcony, waving gracefully at delirious supporters from a distant height. “In the day-to-day governance, Mayawati does not meet any officer except a coterie of her close aides and similarly she does not meet the party cadres or functionaries,” laments an Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister. Mayawati rarely goes to her office on the fifth floor (when she does, it is by a private lift situated at the rear of the building) working mostly from home. Every member of the political singles club plays their cards so close to their chest, keeping friends and foes guessing. In Lucknow, bureaucrats say it is easier to work with Mayawati compared to other chief ministers. “Her word is final and no one dares to amend a decision of hers while in Mulayam Singh Yadav’s time, there were too many power centres in the government,” explains a principal secretary who had worked with both. “Behenji’s decision has to be implemented in true letter and spirit and it is for this reason she has earned the sobriquet of Iron Lady and Super Chief Minister.” Mayawati rules by fear; IAS officers are known to queue up outside her room, and there are cases where many have been thrown out in anger. DMs and SPs meekly submit to Mayawati’s orders by living in Dalit villages to oversee development work. Bhirup Sarkar, economist, who declined Didi’s offer of a TMC ticket, says, “Some say the TMC will become a dictatorship. Jayalalithaa, Nitish Kumar, Narendra Modi and even B C Roy are all one-man shows. With a benevolent and well-meaning leader at the top, we stand a better chance.”
NO PERMANENT
FRIENDS OR FOES
Benevolent or dictatorial, leaders without permanent family interests do not have permanent friends or enemies. Mamata, for instance, ran an apology of a party when she broke away from the Congress and floated the TMC in 1997. She then joined the BJP-led NDA which she quit to align with the Congress in the 2001 Assembly elections. The TMC lost, again in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and the Assembly polls of 2006, leaving Mamata in political wilderness. During this period, Sudip Bandopadhyay, Saugata Roy and many other lieutenants left the TMC. Her detractors dubbed her as a protester in perpetuity who suffered from a deep sense of persecution. However, many are back on her bandwagon. Sudip is the chief whip of the party in Lok Sabha. “She has learnt to be patient and is more willing to accommodate diverse views,” says Derek O’Brien, in charge of the party’s media campaign. “She has picked up old friends and new allies to create a structure and an organisation.” It is an art mastered by her southern political cousin Jayalalithaa as well as her sister in the north, Mayawati. In 1998, Jayalalithaa first propped up the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and then pulled the plug. Mayawati has entered into and exited mercurial alliances with arch enemy Samajwadi Party (1993), BJP (1995 and 1998) and Congress (1996). Ruling Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time—the first time the BSP won a majority—she is now supporting the UPA. But only on piecemeal basis, trading her support every time it is sought and extracting a price. “Mayawati learnt the art of manipulating allies to suit her purpose and then discarding them from her mentor Kanshi Ram and she is ruthless,” points out Prof Ramesh Dixit, political scientist in Lucknow University. Patnaik rode the BJP bandwagon for five years, only to jump off in 2009 when he was certain he could retain power on his own.
HEREDITARY POLITICS
A significant portion of India’s political real estate is occupied by the families of countless politicians whose future generations look forward to continued tenancy—the Gandhis, the Yadavs, the Pawars, the Abdullahs, the Scindias, the Pilots, the Sangmas, the Badals, the Hoodas, the Chautalas, the Gehlots, the Deoras, the Kadapa Reddys among others. Rahul Gandhi, while addressing students in Madhya Pradesh in 2010 had remarked: “Main apne pita, nani aur pardada ke bina us jagah par nahin pahunch sakta tha jahan main aaj hoon (Without my father, grandmother and great-grandfather, I could never have been in the place that I am now).” An analysis of the family forest in Parliament reveals that politics and family are inseparable: 17.9 per cent of MPs over 50 years of age have political relatives. For those who are below 50 it is 47.2 per cent; 33 of 38 MPs in the youngest age bracket are children of successful politicians. The Constitution of India was amended in 2008— (Scheduled Tribes) (Union Territories) Order, 1951— to make India’s youngest MP and son of former Congress minister P M Sayeed, Hamdullah Sayeed, eligible to contest the Lok Sabha from Lakshadweep. The youngest minister in UPA II is 29-year-old Agatha Sangma from Meghalaya, who is former speaker P A Sangma’s daughter. According to historian Patrick French, 156 of the 545 Lok Sabha MPs are dynasts; 78 out of 208 Congress MPs are hereditary. The RLD tops the list with 100 per cent family MPs—five of five. NCP had seven of nine, the SP six of 22 while in the eugenic Shiv Sena, the genetic factor applies to only 1 out of 11 MPs. Of the national parties, 19 per cent of BJP MPs were part of political dynasties (22 of 116). Even 25 per cent of CPI(M) MPs (four of 16) have family in politics. Six MPs from the BJD—headed by the childless Patnaik—of 14 are hereditary politicians. The case of the BSP—headed by heirless Mayawati—is similar with seven of 21. Ironically, for a party that was a family concern, the TDP has no political scion in Parliament and neither has the AIADMK. TDP boss N Chandrababu Naidu says with a straight face that dynasty doesn’t work in politics as a principle. “It’s not like a doctor passing on his hospital to the son or daughter or a lawyer handing over his clients to the children after they grow up. Ultimately, even if one emerges from within a particular political family, he or she has to find acceptance from the people at large and the cadre,” Naidu says. His only son, Lokesh, as of now, has no role in the party. Naidu is silent on grooming his son into a politician. His answer: time and circumstances will decide everything.
One thing is certain, however. The singles are here to stay. Speaking on Modi, BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy says, “Mr Modi, who is not a bachelor, by default has positioned himself as a crusader for a family of a billion kin called India.” On Mamata, Roy quotes Max Weber, the German sociologist who said that authority flows from tradition, charisma and institutions and warns, “Unless she builds up an organisation with an heir apparent on whom she and in turn the electorate can trust, charisma alone won’t be able to sustain her.”
Charisma is the key to the sustainability of leadership. Family, like the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty has discovered, can be a double-edged sword. Mamata’s old friend and Congress MP Jayanthi Natarajan says , “It was a
self-less struggle without any attachment; had she been married there would have something pulling her back.” Meanwhile, the singletons of Indian politics find their solitude is a virtue for the time being, one that pushes them forward.
with inputs from Anita Saluja, Santwana Bhattacharya,
G Babu Jayakumar,
Shutapa Paul and Bijay Chaki