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The Indian democracy is gradually degenerating into a hereditary democracy, because most of the Indian leaders in party politics who hold power make conscious attempts to transfer power to their wards thereby depriving the legitimate chances of other party men to come to power; In the end the party system in democracy becomes a laughing stock in the world.

No doubt democracy is the best form of governance. Of course, India boasts of that it is the largest democracy in the world. There is a saying in politics ‘power corrupts power; absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ In the same way the Indian politicians, in their bid to remain in power permanently, hasve converted ‘democracy’ into ‘hereditary democracy’. In other words ‘democracy’ has been perverted or degenerated into ‘hereditary democracy’.

‘Hereditary democracy’ may be defined as the conscious attempts made by the politicians, who are at the helm of affairs or holding power, to transfer power legitimately to their wards ignoring or simply overlooking the claim of other senior politicians in the same party, thereby making the existing party system a laughing stock in the world.

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But an ideal definition of democracy as put forth by former US President Abraham Lincoln would be  ‘the government of the people, by the people and for the people’, which clearly shows the representative character of a democratic government without any scope for mudslinging, nepotism and favoritism.

However, the newly emerging ‘hereditary democracy’ has all the above mentioned vices in it; it negates the basic principles of democracy; it shows utter disregard for peoples opinion and not even a consensus is evolved; party workers at the lower lever or lower cadre are treated just like chattels, simply making them obey or dance to the tunes of high command. The legitimate claim or eligibility of the senior party men for the second line of leadership are not at all considered. Going a step further, such claims made by them are nipped in the bud.

The underlying motives or desires behind such moves are:

  1. The politicians, when they are in power, enjoy enormous powers and prestige, and so are inured to it.
  2. They do not like the shifting of balance of power in favor of any other person in the same party except to his wards.
  3. Besides, the Indian politicians with the exception of only a few leftists,  political parties like socialists and communists, and those true democrats known for their honesty and integrity, amass enormous wealth and unaccounted black money, disproportionate to their income, when they are in power. Such politicians practically considering this wealth as their personal and household wealth want to bequeath it only to their wards and not to others.
  4. Therefore in their bid to transfer power as well as huge wealth to their wards, choose their wards and groom them in politics. When the wards come of age, they are appointed to important high party posts like ‘general secretary’ or ‘organizing secretary’ etc, so that they can learn the nuances of party politics. Subsequently they are elevated to cabinet berths and in the end they assume party leadership.
  5. Besides, the senior politicians who are in party politics also carefully manipulates the party politics and gives instructions to their party cadres that due publicity is given to their wards among the party men as well as in the media. In the process, the party leaders show utter disregard for their loyal party men, their seniority, experience or even their talent or ability; in the process all of them are being made subservient to the interests of their wards than the political party.

In India, with the exception of only a few honest leaders of political parties who believe,in true democracy in almost all the national and regional parties, this tendency of promoting the wards prevails. If any senior party man, who may not be willing to tow the line of party leadership, has no other go but to quit the party. Not having any charisma or resources to float his or her own party, the disgruntled senior party men simply carry on acceding to the whims and caprices of the party leadership. In the result the growth of ‘hereditary democracy’ has become rampant and it flourishes without any check.

But it cannot be denied that the wards of the political leaders have the requisite political background and exposure to enter politics on their own right. However, the most disturbing factor is the blessing and support of the party leadership they get and the ease at which they easily come to the forefront of party politics, making other senior party men to suffer in silence.

The degeneration of democracy into ‘hereditary democracy’ is certainly a retrograde step in the evolution of democracy. While we cannot observe such trends in the Western countries like UK or US which run their democratic form of government. In the US any factor which is disturbing to democracy is nipped in the bud. For example, no one can be the president of US for more than two terms. In the same manner in order to prevent such disturbing trends in democracy in India, we have to do something constructively. For example, a person who belongs to a particular political party and happens to be the ward of the leader of a political party should be subjected to some reasonable restrictions, so that he cannot assume the leadership of a party beyond a particular tenure.

If we fail to prevent the degeneration of democracy into hereditary democracy in India, it may deteriorate further in the near future, making the party system a casualty, posing a very big threat to very existence of democracy.