Families Galore - Implosion: India's Tryst with Reality - page 141

Chelsea admitted in a Vogue magazine interview that she doesn't rule out entering polit-
ics, seeing it (in a way that is unusual in India) as 'part of being a good person ... part of
helping to build a better world [and] ensuring that we have political leaders who are com-
mitted to that premise'. 3 In Britain, Winston Churchill's heirs were high profile but failed
to carve out a political niche, while Margaret Thatcher's offspring did not try, though both
the Churchills and Thatchers cashed in on their parent's name in their careers.
Dynasty has enabled women to become leaders in Asian societies 4 where it would oth-
erwise have been difficult for them to attain high office (though this has not made a signi-
ficant difference to the role of other women in these countries, apart from token appoint-
ments). More often than not, the women have, like Sonia Gandhi, been the widows or
daughters of assassinated former leaders. In Pakistan, there was Benazir Bhutto, the daugh-
ter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was executed in 1979. She herself was assassinated in 2007
(after which her husband Asif Ali Zardari became Pakistan's president and their son Bilaw-
al Bhutto Zardari is now entering politics).
In Bangladesh, there are two warring families headed by Sheikh Hasina and Begum
Khaleda Zia, who have both been prime ministers. Both entered politics after the assassin-
ation of close relatives. Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of Bangladesh's
independence movement and its first prime minister, was killed in a 1975 army coup along
with other family members. Zia's husband, General Ziaur Rahman, seized power after
Mujib's assassination and was himself assassinated in an abortive 1981 coup. By destabil-
izing each other's governments when they are in opposition, the two women have allowed
their feud to stymie the development of one of the world's poorest countries, and both have
sons or other relatives lining up to succeed them. In Sri Lanka, there was the Bandaranaike
dynasty and the country is now controlled by a new dynasty led by President Mahinda Ra-
japaksa. In Myanmar, there is the iconic opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The small
Himalayan countries of Nepal and Bhutan used to keep it simple with hereditary monarchs,
but Nepal's was ousted in 2008, 5 and Bhutan's has been partially replaced by a democrat-
ically elected government.
The Families
The acceptance of dynasties fits with the idea of making do with things as they are - if a
dynasty works, why change it! But does it work? It has certainly been supremely important
in India because of the Nehru-Gandhi leadership of both the Congress party and the central
government, but the country's politics would have developed differently if the family had
moved to the sidelines in the second half of the twentieth century. Despite persistent ru-
mours - unproven and denied - that have continued to swirl around the Gandhis since the