Amid Lok Sabha elections 2019, many people have in mind a thought about the Indian political system, that it is also surrounded by nepotism and dynasty like Bollywood. Politics, business, mainstream cinema and other occupations where talent is subordinate to lineage are dominated by family cartels, who plant their own over the rest.
At present whichever party you look at in every part of India, nepotism is rampant. If you have the right surname, you will get a ticket. Every time we talk about nepotism or dynasty in politics the first name that pops our mind is the grand old party, Indian National Congress, but a recent study by IndiaSpend has shown that it’s just not Congress but even Bharatiya Janata Party has had a similar number of ‘dynasts’ amongst its elected parliamentarians over the past two decades. The IndiaSpend‘s analysis of a new dataset contains the biographical profiles of all 4,807 parliamentarians since India’s first parliament in 1952.
Since 1999, the Congress has had 36 dynastic MPs elected to the Lok Sabha, with the BJP not far behind with 31. In 1999, the beginning of the 13th Lok Sabha, 8% of Congress members of parliament (MPs) were either descended from or married to former MPs, only slightly ahead of the 6% among the BJP. The most similar density of dynastic politicians was in 2009 when the Congress and BJP had 11% and 12% dynasts elected respectively.
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With the Congress which has been in power for the longest period since India’s independence, the prominent position of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the party has associated the Congress with nepotism in Indian politics. However, political dynasties are common across all major parties, as per an IndiaSpend analysis of data compiled by researchers at Harvard University, US, and the University of Mannheim, Germany.
But the size of the dynasty aside, as many as 130 MPs who won in the Lok Sabha elections 2014 had some kind of political lineage. The phenomenon existed across the party lines. While the 44 of BJP MPs came with political history, Congress had 18 such MPs in 2014. Similarly, MPs from AIADMK had two, TMC had seven, BJD with three, Shiv Sena had eight, TDP- seven, TRS had four, YSRCP and SP had five past political ties each.
The numbers have proved that nepotism and dynasty cripple all of us, in every profession, at every socio-economic level – and nobody can refute that.
Amid Lok Sabha elections 2019, many people have in mind a thought about the Indian political system, that it is also surrounded by nepotism and dynasty like Bollywood. Politics, business, mainstream cinema and other occupations where talent is subordinate to lineage are dominated by family cartels, who plant their own over the rest.
At present whichever party you look at in every part of India, nepotism is rampant. If you have the right surname, you will get a ticket. Every time we talk about nepotism or dynasty in politics the first name that pops our mind is the grand old party, Indian National Congress, but a recent study by IndiaSpend has shown that it’s just not Congress but even Bharatiya Janata Party has had a similar number of ‘dynasts’ amongst its elected parliamentarians over the past two decades. The IndiaSpend‘s analysis of a new dataset contains the biographical profiles of all 4,807 parliamentarians since India’s first parliament in 1952.
Since 1999, the Congress has had 36 dynastic MPs elected to the Lok Sabha, with the BJP not far behind with 31. In 1999, the beginning of the 13th Lok Sabha, 8% of Congress members of parliament (MPs) were either descended from or married to former MPs, only slightly ahead of the 6% among the BJP. The most similar density of dynastic politicians was in 2009 when the Congress and BJP had 11% and 12% dynasts elected respectively.
With the Congress which has been in power for the longest period since India’s independence, the prominent position of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the party has associated the Congress with nepotism in Indian politics. However, political dynasties are common across all major parties, as per an IndiaSpend analysis of data compiled by researchers at Harvard University, US, and the University of Mannheim, Germany.
But the size of the dynasty aside, as many as 130 MPs who won in the Lok Sabha elections 2014 had some kind of political lineage. The phenomenon existed across the party lines. While the 44 of BJP MPs came with political history, Congress had 18 such MPs in 2014. Similarly, MPs from AIADMK had two, TMC had seven, BJD with three, Shiv Sena had eight, TDP- seven, TRS had four, YSRCP and SP had five past political ties each.
The numbers have proved that nepotism and dynasty cripple all of us, in every profession, at every socio-economic level – and nobody can refute that.
