F. N. YURLOV

Doctor of Historical Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Keywords: dynasty, democracy, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv, Sonia

Among the two hundred countries of the world, India occupies a special place as the largest democratic power. Indeed, 554 million people participated in the country's last parliamentary elections in 2014. out of 814 million. voters. This is a huge achievement in itself, considering that India became independent just over 65 years ago.

The development of democracy in this multi-religious, multi-ethnic and, moreover, poor country has been mixed. It required the mobilization of all resources, including economic and political ones, to raise India and direct it along this path. Great credit for this went to its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid the foundations for the country's democratic system.

After his death in 1964, a year and a half later, his daughter Indira Gandhi came to power, continuing this Nehru course. But under the influence of crisis circumstances in the economy and politics, and due to some features of her character, she moved largely to authoritarian methods of government and began to concentrate power in the hands of her family.

Thus began the transition to a dynastic form of government, which continued intermittently after the assassination of Gandhi in 1984 until the last elections in 2014. Led by members of Indira Gandhi's family - first her son Rajiv, then her daughter - in - law Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi-the ruling Indian National Congress (Congress) party suffered a crushing defeat from the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party-BJP).

Thus, the nearly half-century-long dynastic rule of members of the Nehru-Gandhi family was interrupted, at least for the immediate historical perspective, and perhaps even ended.

The question arises: what is the reason for such a phenomenon as dynastic rule in democratic India?

TRADITIONAL ENVIRONMENT AS A SOURCE OF DYNASTIYNESS

Political dynasties in India are inextricably linked with the traditional attitude of society towards the family and its values. The influence of the family as a fundamental element of Indian society was and still is an important factor in public consciousness. The traditional family is based on the continuity of occupation (for example, trade and economic activities) and relations with other families-clans, castes,and religions.

The centuries-old distribution of family labor occupations that pass from one family to another is still of great importance. At the basic level, family, caste, and other dynasties have developed over the centuries, essentially doing the same thing. Until now, the norm of social life remains a strong family united around these occupations, although under the influence of modernization processes, it changes, acquires new features and characteristics.

In India and other South Asian countries, political dynasties are not exclusive. To a certain extent, they continue the traditions of the ruling clans of pre-colonial and colonial India, where power passed down the family line from one ruler (maharaja, nawab, nizam) to another. From father to son, brother, widow, daughter...

In modern India, these traditions are largely preserved. Society as a whole does not object to the fact that political power at different levels can be transferred from one family member to another. This is not considered shameful or unacceptable. Society treats calmly, and more often approvingly, the fact that political power passes along the dynastic line - including in a democratic way, through elections. A strong, cohesive family, especially from elite classes and groups, often serves as an object of imitation for other strata at lower levels of the social hierarchy.

In the Indian tradition, there are no official or public prohibitions against members of the same family zanima.-

They were involved in politics, including in one political party. Although there are also cases (quite rare) when individual family members from different generations act as political opponents among themselves.

Today's India provides numerous examples of political dynasties at almost all levels, from bottom to top. This is especially evident at the state level, which, in turn, play a major role in the alignment of political forces in the center of the country. Almost all the leaders of major national and state parties rely heavily on dynastic principles, with the exception of the left-wing parties and, to a certain extent, the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In fact, every state in the country has its own dynasties - both in power and in opposition. For example, in Tamilnadu, a major Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Dravidian Progressive Federation, DMK) party has been led by the Karunanidhi family for many decades. In Bihar, for many years, the government was headed by the Lalu Prasad Yadav family clan and his Rashtriya Janata Dal (National Democratic Party) party. He and his wife Rabri Devi have been chief ministers of the state for decades.

In another major state, Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party (Socialist Party, SP) is headed by Mulayam Yadav, whose son Akhilesh is the Chief Minister of the state.

In Orissa, Naveen Patnaik is the long-term Chief Minister of the state. He is the head of the Biju Janata Dal (Biju People's Party), named after his father Biju Patnaik, who was one of Jawaharlal Nehru's associates and a popular chief Minister of this state in the early years of Indian independence. [¹]

This list could go on, as nepotism and dynasticism permeate the mass consciousness of all strata of Indian society. Therefore, it is not surprising that at the top of the political pyramid in the center and in the states are often members of the same family, the same dynasty.

FORMATION OF THE NEHRU-GANDHI POLITICAL DYNASTY

The peculiarity of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty is, first of all, that it was formed gradually, over many decades. Its foundation was laid in the 1920s by Jawaharlal Nehru's father, Motilal Nehru (1861-1931), who made a major contribution to the Indian national liberation movement against colonialism.

He was twice elected President of the Indian National Congress, under whose leadership India achieved independence. It was Motilal Nehru, especially in the first phase of Jawaharlal Nehru's political career, who prepared him for his future role as Congress leader.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was one of the greatest leaders of India's liberation movement from British colonial oppression, and later Prime Minister of independent India for almost 17 years. During that difficult period, he was a central political figure in the country. His ideas and activities for a long time determined the direction and nature of the country's domestic and foreign policy, its development along the democratic path.²

Jawaharlal Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) grew up and grew up in the politicized Nehru family, almost all of whose members participated in the liberation movement. From a young age, she actually prepared for political activity and even set herself the goal of becoming an "Indian Joan of Arc".

Even during her father's lifetime, she entered the political arena of India, took part in the struggle for independence of the country and became a close associate of Jawaharlal Nehru during the independence years. In 1959. Indira Gandhi was elected President of the Congress. After the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, she remained in the governing bodies of the Congress and Government, and in January 1966 was elected President of the party and Prime Minister of the country. It was not only her personal qualities that played a role in this, but also her belonging to the Nehru family.

Indira Gandhi was in this position for a total of about 16 years (with a break in 1977-1978, when the Janata Party (People's Party, NP) passed power in the country. Indira Gandhi continued the work started by her father, but in a new environment, when the Congress faced tough opposition from conservative forces. In an effort to keep power in their hands-

It has resorted to the introduction of a state of emergency in ^the country3.

The participation of Indira Gandhi's sons Rajiv and Sanjay in the "family" case looked different. They were first raised in the family of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But their personalities, affections, and destinies were different. The youngest of them, Sanjay, entered the political struggle early and proved himself to be a tough, authoritarian politician who took full advantage of his membership in the Indira Gandhi clan. She, in turn, trusted him and prepared him for the role of her successor as Prime Minister. But fate decided otherwise - in 1980. Sanjay crashed in a plane crash ⁴.

After that, Indira Gandhi called on Rajiv Gandhi, who was very far from politics (he served in the civil aviation), to help her. Rajiv reluctantly agreed and very soon became a member of Parliament and then General Secretary of the Congress. In short, he took a "crash course" in political activity under the guidance of his mother.

In October 1984, after the assassination of Gandhi, Rajiv inherited power in the party and government - he was elected head of the Congress parliamentary group and became Prime Minister of the country. He was 40 years old. In the parliamentary elections in December of the same year, the Congress won an overwhelming majority of parliamentary mandates ("on the blood of Indira Gandhi").

Rajiv sought to modernize the administration of India, attracting many young people to this task. But he did not take into account the deep traditional problems of society. After one Congress term in power, Rajiv lost the election in 1989. The Congress was in opposition.

In May 1991, while campaigning for a snap parliamentary election, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a terrorist. His tragic death temporarily interrupted the activities of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, whose members led the Congress for a total of 44 years after India's independence, including 38 years as prime ministers of the country.⁵

After the death of Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress leadership asked his widow Sonia (of Italian descent) to lead the party and government. At that time, Sonia Gandhi was not even a member of Congress and had virtually no political experience. She declined the offer.

After that, with the help of a few defectors from a small party, a Congress government headed by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was formed in Jharkhand State, which lasted until 1996. Rao was subsequently convicted by the first instance court for allegedly participating in the bribery of these defectors. Prior to consideration of his appeal in a higher court of N. Rao passed away.)

Sonia Gandhi spent the next six years in seclusion, devoting herself to her adult children-her son Rahul and daughter Priyanka. During this time, she wrote two books, Rajiv and Rajiv's World, and published Jawaharlal Nehru's correspondence with Indira Gandhi. [⁶]

During these years, the Congress has significantly lost influence in the country, while the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has increased its political weight. The Congress was defeated in the 1996 parliamentary elections. Congress leaders once again appealed to Sonia Gandhi to lead the party. They hoped that Sonia, as a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, would help revive the Congress.

In 1997, Sonia Gandhi agreed to become a member of the Congress, and in 1998 she was elected its president and in this capacity participated in the parliamentary elections of 1998.The party leadership hoped that the participation of a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the elections would help the Congress win.

But that didn't happen. In the early parliamentary elections in 1999, the Congress was again defeated. During the election campaign, the opposition persistently raised the issue of banning people of foreign origin from holding top positions in the governing bodies of the government. S. Gandhi managed to win a personal victory in two electoral districts (this did not contradict the constitution and the rules of election struggle). Rahul and Priyanka supported her in the election campaign. One of these constituencies was Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, from which members of the Nehru-Gandhi family were previously elected to Parliament. Thus, Sonya confirmed her dynastic affiliation to this clan. The second district in Bellary, Karnataka, was rejected by her, in accordance with the law. In the same year, Sonia Gandhi was elected head of the Congress parliamentary group and leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament.

By the next elections in May 2004, Sonia Gandhi was already the recognized leader of the Congress. In this election, Congress and its coalition allies won. Sonia Gandhi won the right to take the post of Prime Minister. However, she refused to do so, saying that her goal was not the post, but to protect the secular foundation of the nation and the poor in India, " the holy credo of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi." Characteristically, she did not think it necessary to mention Jawaharlal Nehru.

Since then, Sonia Gandhi has been promoting Rahul, 34, who was elected to Parliament from the Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Other members of the Nehru-Gandhi family were previously elected from this constituency. Sonia Gandhi has repeatedly stated that she was "forced" into politics by the need to protect the legacy of the Gandhi family.⁷

After the election, Rahul became one of the general secretaries of the Congress. He was projected in the public consciousness as a future Congress leader and possible Prime Minister. This was directly stated by Manmohan Singh, appointed by Sonia Gandhi to the post of Prime Minister. Some political observers even cynically called the latter the" locum tenens " of this post for Rahul.

In the 2009 elections, Congress won again. Party President Sonia Gandhi has once again become the leader of the parliamentary faction. Once again, she appointed Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister.

After that, Sonia Gandhi began to promote her son even more actively to the highest posts in the party. In 2013, he became Vice President of the Congress. It was linked to the party's future success in the 2014 elections, and Sonia Gandhi's goal was to preserve the Gandhi family's dynastic rule. During her 16 years as president of the Congress, she was never elected to the post by the party Congress, its highest body. Thus, the tradition was broken, according to which the leadership of the Congress was elected every year (under Jawaharlal Nehru), and then (under Indira Gandhi) and at short intervals of three to four years.

CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION DEFEAT IN 2014 - THE END OF A DYNASTY?

In the May 2014 parliamentary elections, the Congress was severely defeated by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party led by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress did not get even 10% of the parliamentary seats required to be considered an official opposition. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul resigned from their party posts, but the party's Working Committee rejected them.

The political power of both members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty was interrupted-perhaps for a long time. Their future fate depended not only on their intentions and aspirations, but also on the fundamentally changed balance of power in the country's political arena.

After the defeat of the Congress, the political fate of not only Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, but also the entire legacy of their predecessors from the Nehru-Gandhi family, was called into question. Moreover, demonization and attacks on the ideological and political past associated with Jawaharlal Nehru, as well as with Indira Gandhi, began.

Almost everything of value that Nehru created to build an independent India after 200 years of colonial rule came under attack from conservative, religious and communal forces. The reason for this was the dynastic rule of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi did not achieve any significant achievements in the construction and development of India. Moreover, the generations of this dynasty that followed Nehru and Indira Gandhi gradually began to abandon such key ideas of Nehru as the fight against poverty and social justice, and replace them with ideas and practices of so-called inclusive development, which did not bring noticeable results in India. Now the absolute number of poor people is more than a third of the country's population (according to the World Bank methodology, according to which people with an income below $1.25 a day are considered poor).

Jawaharlal Nehru's policies, of course, cannot be without criticism. In domestic politics, Nehru can be blamed for the incompleteness of agrarian reforms, for the lack of proper attention to the development of primary education. In the external - in insufficient work on the construction of the armed forces of India, in mistakes during the Indo-Chinese war of 1962 and a number of other mistakes.

But at the same time, it should be remembered that after leading a country that suffered from the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Nehru began almost from scratch to build an independent, democratic, secular India, overcoming, although not always successfully, many obstacles both internal (first of all, the caste and religious division of society) and external. external issues, including the problems of India-Pakistan relations, especially on the issue of Kashmir.

India became a parliamentary republic largely due to Nehru's efforts. He laid the foundation for the country's scientific and technological development, and began to put into practice the ideas of a mixed economy and planned development.

Nehru brought India to the international stage by leading the Non-Aligned Movement.

In turn, Indira Gandhi continued Nehru's policy, deepening agrarian reforms, abolishing largely feudal relations in the countryside and remaining committed to the policy of non-alignment in international affairs. However, the main flaw in her policy was the introduction of a state of emergency in the country in an effort to keep power in their hands. Unlike Nehru, Indira Gandhi embarked on the path of creating a dynasty, involving her sons in politics and promoting them to the highest positions in the leadership of India.

POLITICAL DYNASTIES IN SRI LANKA AND PAKISTAN

Political dynasties are not unique to India. In Sri Lanka, after the assassination of Solomon Bandaranaike, the country's Prime Minister and leader of the Freedom Party, in 1959, his widow Sirimavo replaced her husband in these posts. She was Prime Minister for about 18 years (1960 - 1965, 1970 - 1977, 1994 - until her death in 2000). Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the world's first female Prime Minister.

Her daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga became the leader of the Freedom Party and Prime Minister in 1994. In the same year, she was elected President of Sri Lanka and named her mother Sirimavo as her successor as Prime Minister. Chandrika herself served two terms as president until 2005.

Over the years of political activity, she had to go through several difficult trials. In 1988, her husband Vijay Kumaratunga was assassinated by political opponents. In 1999, an attempt was made on her life. Chandrika was wounded, and more than 30 people from her inner circle were killed.

Chandrika's younger brother Anura was also active in politics from 1977 until his death in 2008. He was the Speaker of Parliament, head of various ministries, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

After Chandrika retired from politics in 2005, the Bandaranaike dynasty ended its activities. Chandrika's daughter and son chose not to engage in politics, but went abroad to study and work. Chandrika herself encouraged them to do just that, because after the murder of her father, Solomon, and then her husband, she was afraid for her children.⁸

No less dramatic was the fate of the Bhutto dynasty in Pakistan. The founder of the dynasty, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, became president of the country in December 1971, after losing the war with India, which ended with the separation of its eastern part from Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh there. After changes in the constitution in 1973, power in the country was concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister. It was Bhutto. He was also the leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). In 1977, Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup, and then arrested on charges of attempting to assassinate National Assembly member R. A. Kasuri, as well as the murder of his father. In October 1977, Bhutto was executed by a court verdict.

After that, the rule of the military continued in Pakistan. His daughter Benazir Bhutto was detained for several years, but then she was allowed to go abroad. A martyr's halo was created around the name of Z. A. Bhutto. In 1986, Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan. She headed the PNP, which won the 1988 elections. Charismatic Benazir Bhutto became the first female prime minister in a Muslim country.

Her mother Nusrat joined the government, which led the opposition to declare Benazir Bhutto a crony. In 1990, B. Bhutto's husband, businessman Asif Ali Zardari, was arrested on charges of kidnapping and extortion.

The TNG was defeated in the parliamentary elections held at that time, but after the 1993 elections, it returned to power. Benazir Bhutto resumed the post of Prime Minister until February 1997, when the HDP was defeated in a new election. After that, she went abroad.

Benazir Bhutto was unable to participate in the 2002 elections because she was not allowed to return to her homeland. The PPP did not gain a majority in Parliament. After returning to Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007. [⁹] The widowed Asif Ali Zardari was then elected President of Pakistan.

* * *

The experience of India, a number of South Asian countries, as well as some other regions of the world shows that dynastic rule in different echelons of power continues to remain viable and enjoys the support of a significant part of society. This is one of the specific features of Indian society.

However, under the influence of democratic modernization, this support is gradually eroding and giving way to modern forms of political mobilization. This process is likely to be very difficult and lengthy, since traditions related to family foundations, caste and religious divisions are deeply embedded in the fabric of Indian society.

^{Nanda B.R.} 1 Motilal Nehru. Publication Division. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Gol, New Delhi, 1964. See also: Jawaharlal Nehru. Autobiography, Moscow, Inostr. lit. Publishing House, 1955.

^{Gopal Samepalli.} 2 Jawaharlal Nehru. A Biography. Vol. One: 1889 - 1947; Vol. Two: 1947 - 1956; Vol. Three: 1956 - 1964. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984; Yurlov F. N., Yurlova E. S. History of India. XX century. Moscow, IV RAS, 2010, pp. 341-345.

^{Yurlova E. S.} 3 Women of India. Traditsii i sovremennost ' [Traditions and Modernity], Moscow, IV RAS, 2014, pp. 390-420.

^{Yurlov F. N., Yurlova E. S.} 4 History of India. XX century. Moscow, IV RAS, 2010, pp. 360-374, 381-383.

^{Nugent Nicholas.} 5 Rajiv Gandhi. Son of a Dynasty. L.. BBC Books, 1990.

^{Gandhi Sonia,} 6 ed. Two alone, two together. Letters between Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru 1922 - 1964. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2005, p. 6.

^{Yurlova E. S.} 7 Women of India..., pp. 421-439.

⁸ The Hindu. 28.02.2014.

⁹ Ibid. 13.02.2014; Belokrenitsky V. Ya., Moskalenko V. N. History of Pakistan. XX century. Moscow, IV RAS, Kraft+, 2008, pp. 237-293, 350-388; Encyclopedia of Pakistan. / Ed. by Yu. V. Gankovsky, Moscow, Fundamenta Press, 1998, pp. 274-275; Noorani G. Dynasty in Democracy / / Frontline. March 28, 2015.

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