Monarchy vs Democracy

Monarchy vs Democracy

India’s ongoing political battle is between “monarchy” and democracy.

At first glance, such an assertion may sound odd. India is a republic and a union of states. The erstwhile princely states were integrated into the Indian Union, and their rulers’ privileges were abolished decades ago. Yet a monarchical mindset survives wherever political leadership is treated as a hereditary entitlement.

While some erstwhile princely families entered electoral politics to regain a place in the corridors of power, many others established their own political dynasties. These “neo-royal families” have proliferated. Hundreds, nay, thousands, of political families in India treat political leadership as an inheritance to be passed from one generation to the next.

According to a report compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in 2025, out of the 5203 sitting MPs, MLAs and MLCs analysed, 1106 (21%) were from political families. The percentage was higher in the Lok Sabha (31%) than in the state legislatures (20%).

Politics can be a highly profitable profession, offering those who succeed both power and wealth. Formal educational qualifications often count for less than oratorical skill and the ability to mobilise mass support.

Almost all the family parties are caste-based. The modus operandi is common. A caste leader emerges. He struggles to build his “kingdom”. The “kingdom” may be small or large, depending on the caste’s size. The geographical area may also be small or large, depending on the caste’s concentration. The founder would want his children to succeed him. He would not let an outsider take his assets. Akhilesh Yadav inherited the Samajwadi Party from his father. Tejashwi Yadav inherited the Rashtriya Janata Dal from Lalu Yadav.

If a political leader has more than one successor, rivalry over succession may lead to a split in the party.

It is very much what we see in the business world. Dhirubhai Ambani built a business empire. His successors—his two sons—split the empire in two parts.

If a family party is large enough, it can aspire to form government. Rahul Gandhi aspires to form the central government, while Akhilesh Yadav aspires to be the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Most of the family parties are small or medium-sized. None can form government on their own, but their support becomes crucial in a coalition government.

Take Apna Dal, for example. Founded by Dr. Sone Lal Patel in 1995, it draws its support primarily from the Kurmi community in eastern Uttar Pradesh and pockets of central Uttar Pradesh. After his death, a dispute between his widow, Krishna Patel, and their daughter, Anupriya Patel, led to a split in the party. Anupriya Patel is her faction’s sole Lok Sabha MP and a Union Minister of State in the NDA government. In a coalition dependent on its allies, even a single MP can matter.

The oldest of these dynastic parties is the Congress, controlled by the Nehru-Gandhi family. How a large political party at the forefront of India’s freedom movement came under one family’s control makes interesting reading.

In hindsight, its founder was Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru’s father. Both father and son were Congress leaders before independence. The father was the Congress President in 1919 and again in 1928. The son succeeded him in 1929. Jawaharlal Nehru (hereafter referred to as Nehru) became Congress president a second time in 1936 and continued in 1937.

A decisive moment in Nehru’s rise came with the 1946 Congress presidential succession. Maulana Azad’s successor was expected to head the interim government and eventually become independent India’s first Prime Minister. Although Patel enjoyed stronger support among provincial Congress committees, he withdrew at Gandhi’s urging, clearing the way for Nehru. Gandhi, despite having relinquished Congress membership years earlier, retained enormous influence over its affairs.

Nehru joined the Viceroy’s Executive Council as Vice-President on September 2, 1946, and became independent India’s first Prime Minister on August 15, 1947. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, managed his household and learned politics at his side. Indira Gandhi’s husband’s original name was Feroze Jehangir Ghandy.  As I heard in my youth, on the Mahatma’s advice, he changed the spelling of the surname to “Gandhi”. Marrying Feroze Gandhi gave the family the combined political identity of “Nehru-Gandhi”.

Indira became Congress President in 1959, during her father’s prime ministership. This strengthened her political standing and helped establish the family’s third generation within the party leadership.

After Nehru’s death, Lal Bahadur Shastri became Prime Minister, with Indira serving as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Following Shastri’s mysterious death in Tashkent on January 11, 1966, she defeated Morarji Desai in the Congress parliamentary leadership election on January 19 and became Prime Minister on January 24.

Indira now sought to consolidate her authority, win popular support and prepare a successor. Congress won 283 of 520 seats in 1967, compared with 361 in 1962. Her struggle with the party’s old guard culminated in the November 1969 split. In 1971, her Congress secured 352 seats, giving her a commanding parliamentary majority.

Her position was shaken on June 12, 1975, when the Allahabad High Court set aside her election for corrupt electoral practices. The Supreme Court subsequently granted a conditional stay pending appeal. Meanwhile, Jayaprakash Narayan’s “Total Revolution” movement intensified opposition to her government.

On June 25, JP addressed a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, urging peaceful resistance and calling upon the police and armed forces to disobey illegal orders. That night, on Indira’s advice, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed proclaimed an Emergency. She acquired dictatorial powers to save her position. Opposition leaders were imprisoned, the press was censored, and judicial enforcement of several fundamental rights was suspended.

With Rajiv Gandhi initially uninterested in politics, Indira had groomed Sanjay, who became a law unto himself during the Emergency. Congress’s 1977 defeat kept the family out of central power for nearly three years. In 1980, however, Congress won 353 of the 529 seats contested, restoring Indira with a decisive mandate.

After Sanjay’s death in an air crash on June 23, 1980, Sonia persuaded Rajiv to leave his airline career and enter politics. He won the Amethi seat—previously represented by Sanjay—in a June 1981 by-election and became a Congress general secretary in February 1983.

Following Indira’s assassination on October 31, 1984, President Giani Zail Singh swore Rajiv in as Prime Minister without waiting for his formal election as Congress parliamentary leader. He was elevated only because of his parentage. In my blog, “Rajiv Gandhi, an Unconstitutional Prime Minister”, I argue that this departure from parliamentary convention was constitutionally improper.[1]

Congress won 404 seats in December 1984, rising to 414 after delayed elections in Punjab and Assam in 1985. The sympathy wave strengthened the family’s position. Rajiv nevertheless squandered much of that support. Bofors bribery allegations damaged his image, and V. P. Singh exploited the controversy. Congress fell to 197 seats in 1989 and lost power.

After Rajiv’s assassination in 1991, Congress leadership passed to P. V. Narasimha Rao, whose government lasted until 1996, and subsequently to Sitaram Kesri. Sonia Gandhi restored the family’s leadership by forcibly replacing Kesri in March 1998.

Congress returned to government in 2004, with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister and Sonia leading the party and ruling coalition. Her chairmanship of the National Advisory Council drew criticism for operating as a parallel cabinet. In my assessment, the arrangement gave the family substantial control over government decisions, including appointments to key posts, without the responsibilities of the prime ministership.

Nehru and Indira combined charisma with a grassroots organisation and strong state leaders. In my assessment, Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul failed to sustain a comparable connection with the electorate.

Since 1967, the party’s hold over the states has been declining, and the party has been losing elections after election. At the centre, the Congress could not recover fully since its decline in 1989.

The family party, as the Congress had become, could rule at the centre from 1947 to 1989, with the exception of about two and a half years of the Janata Party rule, because there was no national opposition. Gradually, the BJP emerged as a national alternative. It produced two charismatic leaders: first Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who ruled for 6 years, and then Narendra Modi, who has been ruling since 2014.

In the 2014 general election, Congress was reduced to just 44 seats, while the BJP secured an absolute majority with 282. The BJP increased its tally to 303 in 2019. In 2024, however, its strength fell to 240, short of a majority, and it formed the government with the support of its pre-election alliance partners.

The massive defeat in the 2014 general election stunned Sonia and Rahul. Taking responsibility for the defeat, both offered to resign from their respective offices. However, the Congress working committee expressed full confidence in them. The family remained in control of the party.

Their main challenge was regaining power. Born into the Nehru-Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi has come to believe it is natural that he should rule the country. His great-grandfather was the Prime Minister. His grandmother was the Prime Minister. His father became Prime Minister only because he was born into the ruling family. Then why not him? He is not satisfied with the status of The leader of opposition. He wants the crown.

Unfortunately for him, he overlooks his own weaknesses and the party’s weaknesses. Defeats after defeat in state elections and lacklustre performance at the national level have demoralized ground-level workers and local leaders. Rahul Gandhi lacks leadership qualities as well as organisational ability. He cannot impress voters, energise party workers, or revive the party. Neither the Congress party nor Rahul Gandhi has any positive program against the BJP. In such a situation, his only strategy has been to humiliate Narendra Modi. Once, he said that Modi’s biggest asset was his image, which he vowed to break.

To break Modi’s image in the 2019 general election, he levelled baseless charges of corruption in the purchase of Rafale fighters from France. Voters didn’t believe him and gave Modi more support.

He didn’t learn a lesson from the 2019 fiasco. In the 2024 general election, he coined the term “chowkidar chor hai” (guard is a thief). The BJP’s score fell, but not because of Rahul Gandhi’s allegation. In many cases, the main causes were the wrong choice of candidates and the BJP leadership’s failure to enthuse ground-level workers. They came to believe that, with Modi as a charismatic vote-catcher, they didn’t need to do much in the field.

Modi remained Prime Minister. In addition, the BJP has been winning state elections. The victory in the West Bengal election has unnerved the opposition parties.

Rahul Gandhi has to prepare the ground for wresting power in 2029. He is angry with voters. Why is anti-incumbency not working? He has a natural right to get votes. Why are voters voting for the Congress?

In August 2025, Rahul Gandhi intensified his campaign around “vote chori” (theft of votes). The implication seemed to be that if Congress was not winning elections, someone must be stealing what “rightfully” belonged to it.

Controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls gave him an opportunity to sharpen the charge. Reports of differences between the Chief Election Commissioner and his two colleagues, together with allegations that lakhs of eligible voters had been wrongly excluded, added fuel to the campaign.

The slogan rallied dynastic parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the RJD, while giving communist parties and smaller political groups another platform to protest against the NDA government.

Rahul Gandhi seems more inclined to challenge the credibility of electoral outcomes than to undertake the sustained organisational work needed to strengthen Congress and win elections. He appears determined to keep the allegation of “vote chori” alive until the next general election in 2029, with support from Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav and other opposition leaders.

I am no astrologer, but my gut feeling is that the coming years will bring sustained political agitation. I also fear that attempts to destabilise India could accompany it.

Devendra Narain

October 22, 2026

 

[1]  https://devendranarain.com/rajiv-gandhi-an-…inister-of-india/