Critique of dynastic political clans of Haryana
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Characteristics of political dynasties: ideology-less self-serving hegemony of caste and region based dynasties
The political dynasties of Haryana are not driven by the ideology, but by the goal of holding the power and keeping the rivals out. Dynastic politicians have unfair advantage from the start of their political career. The dynastic political clans of Haryana are often criticised for the infamous self-serving politics of the Aaya Ram Gaya Ram turncoats who notoriously engage in the frequent party switching, political horse trading, unholy political alliances, political corruption, political cronyism, nepotistic-dynastic rule which serves their own clan more than it serves their voters and people of Haryana they ought to serve.
Dynasties in Congress and BJP
Though dynasties exist across the left–right political spectrum of political continuum, the self-professed centrist Congress and regional parties use to be more dynastic than the right-wing BJP or the left-wing communists, but that distinction is fast fading as BJP also has large number of homegrown dynasts as well has inducted large number of opportunistic party-hopper dynasts from other parties.
In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, there were at least 8 dynasts grandchildren, great-grandsons and sons of ex-CMs of Haryana, all of them were the usual suspects, i.e. Lal trio clans, Hooda-Birender clan and Rao-Yadav clan. Of total 10 seats from Haryana, the highest number of dynasts candidates were from Congress 9 (2 from Hooda clan, Shruti Chaudhary from Bansi Lal clan, Bhavya Bishnoi from Bhajan Lal clan, Kumari Selja, Kuldeep Sharma, Tanwar), followed by 2 from Devi Lal clan (Digvijay and Arjun Chautala), and 2 from BJP (Bijender Singh and Rao Inderjit). The BJP won all the 10 seats in the election.
Consequences of dynastic politics in Haryana
Proliferation of dynasties keeps people poorer
A data based scientific empirical research, which studied the impact of dynastic politics on the level of poverty of the provinces, found a positive correlation between dynastic politics and poverty i.e. the higher proportion of dynastic politicians in power in a province leads to higher poverty rate. There is significant evidence that these political dynasties use their political dominance over their respective regions to enrich themselves, using methods such as graft or outright bribery of legislators. Even relatively richer provinces could not become truly richer due to the dynastic politics.
Dynasties' conflict-of-interest creates corruption
Since the political dynasties hold significant economic power and their interests are overrepresented due to dynastic politics, it leads to the conflicts of interests and corruption. As of December 2009[update], 120 (22%) of India's 542 parliament members were accused of various crimes under India's First Information Report procedure. Many of the biggest scandals since 2010[update] have involved high level government officials, including Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers, such as the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam (₹70,000 crore (US$7.3 billion)), the Adarsh Housing Society scam, the Coal Mining Scam (₹1.86 lakh crore (US$19 billion)), the Mining Scandal and the Cash for Vote scams. The industries most vulnerable to corruption as: government-run social development projects, infrastructure development & real estate projects, mining, aerospace & defence, and Power & Utilities (2013 EY and 2011 KPMG). India ranked at 78th place out of 180 in the 2018 Corruption Perception Index and more than 50% of Indians had at some point or another paid a bribe to a public official to get a job done (Transparency International, 2008).
The negative impact of dynasties on the economy and wealth of province can be explained by the "Carnegie Effect" named after the industrialist Andrew Carnegie who donated all his wealth for philanthropy to non-family members, because he believed the dynasts have less incentive of working hard if they are assured of inherited power, connections and wealth. Political dynasties prefer status quo and develop self-serving interests largely different from the interests of voters they ought to be serving. Dynastic candidates, being almost exclusively from the upper classes, are naturally biased towards defending their own vested interests.
Misuse of state resources by dynasties for self-promotion
In a blatant act of self-promotion by misusing state institutes, the Bhupinder Singh Hooda led Congress govt in Haryana, introduced a chapter titled "Haryana Ke Gaurav" (Pride of Haryana) in the curriculum of class V to teach students about the political dynasties in a glorified light i.e. highlighted only the positive aspects of dynast leaders related to top 5 prolific dynasties of the state, e.g. Devi Lal and Bansi Lal, Chotu Ram and Ranbir Singh Hooda, etc. Based on the recommendations by a committee that had members of NCERT and SCERT in 2016 this chapter was removed by the BJP government led by the Chief Minister Manohar Lal. It was replaced by a new chapter titled "Gaurav Gatha" (Glorious Legends), which replaced the dynast leaders with the freedom fighters non-dynast leaders of national stature, including the greats such as Bhagat Singh, Vallabhbhai Patel, Lala Lajpat Rai and Lokmanya Tilak to name a few. To reinforce their political image and lineage to gain unfair "instant recognition" for multiple generations, dynasts engage in wastage of government resources and taxpayer's money, for example erecting numerous statues of the dynast leaders, naming multiple institutes and schemes after the same dynastic leaders of own clan, etc.; this money could have been better spent on the welfare of poor and the development of the state. To reverse and prevent this, there have been demands for the "anti-dynasty laws" and the "anti-dynasties pro-martyrs institution naming policies" to specifically exclude the dynasts and politicians, and to include the martyrs and the non-political prominent achievers in the specific area. [citation needed]
To keep the rivals out of power and to prevent the rise of emerging challengers, the political dynasties often misuse state agencies, police, vigilance bureau, false cases with planted evidence to persecute and harass their rivals in each district and village in a psychopathic manner.
"Why do we invest our lives in politics, Why do we endure the dust, heat, bumpy helicopters, ‘dhakka-mukki’ (push-and-shove), court cases, arrests, to get this thing called power? Is mein aisa kya current hai (what is this irresistible pull)? Not the money. After all, even after you made all your money, you couldn’t really enjoy it. In our politics, you can’t be seen to be rich, even your cars, homes and kurtas had to look modest. Even your families couldn’t be seen flaunting jewellery, or splurging. When you get power you do to the guy you defeated exactly what he did to you. Not even so much to him, but to his people. We know who his people are, in every district, every village. We send our police, vigilance bureau, whatever after them. For those we really want to target, we may even keep a kilo of illegal opium or a murder charge handy. When we hurt these people, they go running to their bosses and say, huzoor, bachao mujhe (sir, please save me). Then, their leader says he can’t, because he hasn’t got the power any more. The torture he suffers (jab woh tadapta hai), that is our fix. Tab dil mein jo thandak padti hai, uske liye 5 saal dhakke khaate hain (the incredible pleasure we get from our rivals’ helplessness to help his own is why we work so hard at our politics)."
Dynasties prevent the rise of talented non-dynasts
Dynastic politicians tend to be generally less capable compared to non-dynastic politicians, because of their reliance on dynastic connections rather than academic and professional competence for their position. Unethical practices of nepotism and cronyism have negative consequences because the truly qualified and talented people have to face injustices and it eventually leads to corruption and brain drains which creates the social discrimination. Research has found that the dynast members of parliament (MPs) are less likely to have served at the grassroots politics, such as panchayat elections, than the non-dynastic MPs. Political dynasties collude to maintain the status quo, by preventing the non-dynastic better-skilled more-capable challengers/candidates being elected to the power. This in turn leads to the bureaucratic inefficiencies and underdevelopment, the lack of accountability and transparency in governance, and the resistance to adoption of new progressive-transformative ideas needed for the faster-paced development.
Sustaining and perpetuating the dynasties
Rise of political dynasties caused by the creation of family-controlled self-serving despotic non-democratic parties in democracy which breed nepotistic parasitic patron-psychophants hegemony. Dynasties sustain and perpetuate their power by the collaboration of competing dynasties aimed at maintaining their mutual hegemony and preventing the rise of others as new political challengers. The collaborating dynasties do so by building strong friendly and family ties outside the politics (usually inter-marrying across rival parties) to sustain each other, while keeping the facade of being the political adversaries.
Decline and demolition of dynasties
Parties go in decline with the death of the chief patron, internal squabbling for power among the members of controlling-family, rise of new non-dynastic charismatic leaders, anti-dynasty disgust among the voters with the increased literacy rate in the country, rising aspirations of the politically aware non-dynastic masses and civil society. Dynasties can be reduced and eliminated by implementing the anti-dynasty laws, stringent conflict of interest laws, stringent laws for the transparency in governance and party operations, mandatory intra-party democracy law as a precondition for maintaining the ongoing registration of the party, laws limiting the number of terms for the elected representatives and party officials, laws limiting the number of simultaneous candidates from the same families, laws to enforce a cooling period between the generations of dynasties for the entry into politics, developing grassroots leadership, institutionalized mechanism for the progression of grass-root leaders into state and national politics e.g. mandatory for MLA and MP to have served at panchayat or municipal level, strengthening the institutionalized role of the civil society in the enforcing the accountability and transparency in governance.
