From a random list of famous leaders, can you name a son or daughter of Hugo Chavez, Zhou En Lai, Abdel Nasser, Mahathir Mohammad, Lee Kuan Yew, Willy Brandt, Charles de Gaulle, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, or Margaret Thatcher?
Most of us do not know. Nor should we. We remember the achievements of the individual, ignore the family, and move on.
Some of you will say: “Aha, I know Mark Thatcher!” Yeah, and what is he famous for? A Wonga coup in an oil rich African country involving mercenaries and some questionable business deals. Hardly an inspirational example, though he does serve a purpose here.
In his defence, he decided not to follow his mother’s footsteps into politics and instead took the cynical or pragmatic path of leveraging her prestige and connections to make a pile of money.
Amid all that dishonesty, he at least remained honest in not going public, and not begging for votes in memory of his mother to carry out some “manifest destiny,” and not plastering her photo up and down town halls in England.
Dynastic dictatorships?
South Asia decided to amend the English political system and combine it with a dose of dynastic dictatorship, rubber-stamped by the public every few years.
Loyalty is taken to ridiculous lengths to the point of wearing different types of attire (such as black waistcoats) or perhaps a particular type of sunglasses. The apologists will claim that all this is above board and internal party elections, perfectly legal, and following laid out party procedures.
This is, however, rather disingenuous. Anyone sticking their head above the parapet and challenging “the family” would automatically be regarded as a traitor to the party. That is primarily because the party is no longer held together by ideology, but actually by the family. Without the figurehead and the myth of the (former) Great Leader, there is very little to distinguish major political parties.
For example, in Bangladesh, both ply the same economic road. Both accept the tutelage of the aid consortium. Both operate within an inferiority complex which underplays the strengths of the people and overplays the power of the multinational.
Neither of them have any real idea of how to really improve the welfare of the people. Neither want to. What drives them is the enmity between them. It is a War of the Roses, not a clash of ideologies.
It is not for lack of leaders or visionaries. The Bengali heartlands of Bangladesh and West Bengal did throw up heroes. If Subhas Chandra Bose had lived, he would have been possibly the outstanding leader of the twentieth century. His almost “Bolivarian” strategic vision is still relevant today and he stands head and shoulders over pretenders.
On a smaller scale, Maulana Bhashani captured the imagination of a generation while Nazrul’s call for “bidrohi” or rebellion still stirs the emotions and surely should be the basis for any follow up to the brief Shahbagh movement.
Crossing the border to Kolkata, the days of Jyoti Basu and lesser leaders are over. They bequeathed us the catastrophe that is Mamata Banerjee: an example of leadership that is bankrupt, hapless and inept.
The Left had lost its way. After stabilising the countryside and giving genuine hope to the rural majority for two decades, the Communists decided to follow the worst excesses of the Chinese model, culminating in the killing of villagers in order to grab their land to build a car factory.
Hero or villain?
That factory is now, very appropriately, to be found in the far western state of Gujarat where perennial Chief Minister Narendra Modi has no problem acquiring land and generally getting his way in his rush to make his state the next South Korea.
He has a vision. He has a plan. He has the energy, drive and determination to implement that plan.
Gujarat is one of the fastest growing states in India. It is a businessman’s dream with private ports, tech cities and financial centres. An entrepôt of commerce and industry, trade, and finance. A million miles away from the sclerotic Nehruvian model of under-development.
There is a fly in the ointment, or should one say, several. He hates Muslims as would any committed Hindu fascist card-carrying member of the RSS. That’s going to be a slight problem in India, the world’s fourth largest Muslim country.
Behind the image of soaring skyscrapers, Gujarat has appalling numbers in terms of illiteracy and malnourishment. It languishes mid-table in the league of Indian states on the quality of life for ordinary people.
He is, however, a clear and present danger but all that stands in front of him is another ineffectual princeling, Rahul Gandhi, who, like his mother and father, was never meant to be in politics.
A Modi regime, if he did win next spring, would be a nightmare for hundreds of millions of people. Flashing all the dazzling economic indicators of growth, profits and technology, he will bring social divisiveness, even greater inequality, and military aggression.
Yet, at least, he is exuding dynamism, charisma and genuine leadership, however warped and cruel he may be. For tens of millions of the higher castes and the urban middle classes he will be regarded as a hero. All I see is a villain.
Thankfully, when the majority of Indians finally get rid of him, they know he will not burden them with a line of little Narendra Modis. Giving everything up for a monastic form of existence for his wretched RSS, he has no children. There will be no Modi dynasty. Thank god for small mercies.