The Succession Game
Zoya Hasan
DYNASTIES OF INDIA AND BEYOND by Inder Malhotra Harper Collins, New Delhi, 2004, 363 pp., 495.00
January 2004, volume 28, No 1

Although the Nehru-Gandhi family alone has dominated accounts on political dynasties so far, it is not the only powerful family/dynasty within India, leave alone South Asia. Indeed, the number of influential families striding the political stage in the region is rather large. In addition, dynasties abound in the world of industry, film, music and many other fields. Even as the Nehru-Gandhi family has attracted much attention in writings in India and abroad, none of the writers has tried to explain why the dynastic dispensation has taken such strong roots in this part of the world or why people vote for dynastic leaders time and again. Malhotra’s book fills this gap and does so without prejudice. He puts the rise of political dynasties in the countries of South Asia in a historical perspective, and he analyses why, in the Asian milieu, democratically elected dynasties are likely to last much longer than they did in the West. Though the Nehru-Gandhi family is unsurprisingly the centerpiece of the book, Malhotra puts the rise of each member of the family in context, therefore the account of this dynasty also becomes an account of politics in India over the past few decades.

Continue reading this review