DMK chief and Chief Minister MK Stalin ignored senior leaders within the party in his 46 His son Udayanidhi Stalin was appointed Deputy Chief Minister. 29 In September, Udhayanidhi along with four more ministers were administered the oath of office by Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi. This is not the first time in Tamil Nadu and DMK. When the father has been the Chief Minister and the son has been the Deputy Chief Minister.
The recent developments in Tamil Nadu are an example of how familyism has taken over Indian politics. Here Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief and Chief Minister MK Stalin, ignoring senior leaders within the party, appointed his 46-year-old son Udhayanidhi Stalin as Deputy Chief Minister. On 29 September, Udhayanidhi along with four more ministers were administered the oath of office by Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi. This is not the first time in Tamil Nadu and DMK that the father has been the Chief Minister and the son the Deputy Chief Minister.
In the year 2009, MK Stalin was also made the Deputy Chief Minister by his father and then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi. While Stalin’s electoral politics started in the year 1984, Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi was elected MLA for the first time in the year 2021. Udhayanidhi joined the cabinet only after one and a half years, so now he is the Deputy Chief Minister of the state. This is the same Udhayanidhi, who last year had talked about eliminating Sanatan culture by comparing it with diseases like dengue, malaria, corona etc.
The recent promotion of Udhayanidhi, the third generation of the Karunanidhi family, comes at a time when the DMK is celebrating its 75th anniversary. In the year 1949, C.N. Annadurai founded the party. After his death in 1969, the command of the party passed to Karunanidhi, who then also became the Chief Minister of the state. He encouraged his family to enter politics. His insistence on succeeding his son Stalin sidelined leaders like Vaiko, who was then best suited to lead the party after Karunanidhi. This discord led to the split of DMK in 1994. The next challenge to Stalin in the party was his own elder brother M.K. It was from Alagiri, who was expelled from the party in 2014. Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi is the party’s Lok Sabha MP. There seems to be little challenge within the DMK to Udhayanidhi’s post-Stalin rise.
Gandhiji was a vocal opponent of familyism. After independence, his elder son Harilal died like an abandoned child in a hospital in Mumbai. But while doing politics in the name of Gandhiji, the first Prime Minister of independent India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, sowed the seeds of dynastic politics in the country by making his only daughter Indira Gandhi the Congress President. During that period, Indira, displaying an authoritarian mentality, had forced Pt. Nehru to dismiss the then left government of Kerala elected by the people and impose President’s rule there. This development laid the foundation for the undemocratic tradition in the Congress of linking the identity of the entire country and party with that of an individual and a family.
Inspired by individualism, Indira not only imposed Emergency (1975–77) on the country, but also started naming her younger son Sanjay Gandhi as her successor. At that time, Sanjay used to interfere in the functioning of the then Indira government without any authority. Rajiv formally entered politics after Sanjay’s death in an air crash in June 1980, who later became the country’s Prime Minister after the brutal murder of his mother. After this, barring a few exceptions, Congress is directly or indirectly dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi family (Sonia-Rahul-Priyanka) and the level of competence and talent in the party is limited to this family.
The result of the dynasty-inspired political example set by the Congress in the last seven decades is that many parties in the country (including Chhatrap) have become victims of nepotism, which at present will be found in both the ruling party and the opposition. Samajwadi Party was founded by Mulayam Singh Yadav. Later his son Akhilesh Yadav became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh like his father and is leading the party today. Many other members of the Mulayam family hold various positions (including MPs). The situation of Rashtriya Janata Dal is no different. It was started by Lalu Prasad Yadav, which is now being handled by his son Tejashwi Yadav. Lalu’s wife Rabri Devi has also been the Chief Minister of Bihar like her husband.
Sharad Pawar had founded the Nationalist Congress Party in the year 1999, which got torn apart last year due to family feud. Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule is the working president and MP of her father’s party. Before the breakup of the party, the command of Shiv Sena was also in the hands of Bal Thackeray’s son Uddhav and grandson Aditya. Trinamool Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party are dominated by aunts (Mamata-Maya) and nephews (Abhishek-Akash). Kashmir politics has been dominated for decades by two families – Abdullah (Shaikh-Farooq-Omar) and Mufti (Sayeed-Mehbooba-Iltija), which is facing a tough challenge after the constitutional erosion of Article 370-35A.
Lok Janshakti Party, an ally of the current ruling NDA government, is also surrounded by allegations of nepotism. It was founded by Ram Vilas Paswan, after whose death his brother Pashupati Kumar took over the party, while now his son Chirag Paswan is taking over the leadership of the party. Similarly, Telugu Desam Party got N.T. Rama Rao, is headed by his son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu, whose son Nara Lokesh is a minister in the Andhra government led by him. Janata Dal (Secular), founded by former Karnataka Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, is also dominated by his family. Same is the situation of Biju Janata Dal in Odisha. The leadership of Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab is in the hands of the Badal family, which had faced opposition within the party in the past.
In fact, in the present era, there are only two political parties in the country – BJP and Left parties, which seem to be free from the disease of nepotism. These two, which are ideologically opposed to each other – there is no single family in control at the central level. When India is dreaming of developing by 2047, can Indian politics be expected to be free from narrow dynasticism during this period?