Indian Politics, A Family Business?

Bangalore: What must one posses in order to join politics at the national level? Is it within the reach for the many millions of capable Indians who dream of a place in the Lok Sabha? While researching his book ‘’India: A Portrait’’, Patrick French conducted a one-of-its kind survey which has tried to answer these questions.

He conducted the survey to determine the social make-up of the Lok sabha. The results of the survey have been nothing short of remarkable. Of the 545 MPs, two-thirds of those under the age of 40 already had a close relative (Usually the father or the mother) in politics. Although BJP and the Left parties were reasonably meritocratic, nine out of 10 Congress MPs under the age of 40 were hereditary politicians!

The survey which was widely reported made people wonder if it really mattered that politics was turning into a family affair. If children of doctors, butchers and movie stars can follow in their parent’s footsteps, why can’t politicians? To this, Patrick says ‘’my answer was that as a real democracy, India needed to have a route to public service that was open to all. A national parliament is required by its very nature to be representative; a butcher's shop is not,’’ as reported by The Week.

Patrick further set out to find an answer to the question- what is the correlation between wealth and heredity in politics today? This question was answered by Aaditya dar who merged two sets of data: Patrick’s original survey and a report on the financial and criminal records of MPs from the Delhi-based Association for Democratic Reforms. Aaditya’s findings show a close relation between wealth and heredity.