One can boldly make a statement that in the history of business, sports, arts, and politics, there has been rarely a case wherein three consecutive generations have continuously given high performance by adding to the wealth or geography of their immediate predecessors. I am referring to what in management is called ‘high performance’ which means consistently in being peak performance for three generations. A father or his predecessor builds the empire, and the offspring live off the empire barely being able to sustain it.  It may be a few generations before again another generation takes over and revives. This has been mostly the pattern. Dynastic succession in business, movies, sports, medical practice, legal practice, etc. are common, and the inheritors of good things come and go. There are no stipulations in these fields that dynastic inheritance should not be allowed. If that is so, what is wrong if it is in Politics? If dynastic succession is a norm, why is there an additional burden of proof in the domain of politics. I make the simple proposition that in politics, the process of selection and elimination are weak or subverted.  Dynastic succession has the potential to damage any line but there are systems of checks and balances in other domains, but in politics, there seem to be both a systemic and market failure.

I can take many illustrations from business or politics or other domains, but let me give a humbler illustration to explain the proposition. There was a famous aging astrologer in the village of Tirunelveli in the South of Tamil Nadu. People from neighbouring villages flocked to consult him for every important affair, and were most sought after. He had a son who was also well versed in astrology which he picked from his father and learnt all nuances watching him from close quarters. The villagers used to flock their house, but would wait for the father. The son used to be simply sitting idle receiving and ushering in clients. He had to wait for his father to retire before he could start his practice. This is the scenario in astrology which many consider as mythology, but even here people hold them accountable for performance and would not easily shift their loyalty to their successors.  Imagine what will be the pressure on the progeny if he or she happens to be in medicine or law. The son or daughter has to wait for his or her father to be out of practice or has to be of extraordinary brilliance, but this looks a rarity for more than one generation. 

I am tempted to give several examples from the world of business and sports, but am leaving out names and empires as that would amount to classifying people as successful and unsuccessful which is a speculative exercise. I will leave that to the reader's imagination and I would rather like to be proved wrong in my prognosis. I invite names of successful dynastic successions; failures are many and there is no much of learning to be obtained.  

Dynastic Succession in Professions

It is common to find off-springs of professionals like doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants take to their father’s professions as they grow in that ambience. In these professions, there are processes and regulatory systems. There is no separate route for the aspirants from the dynasties and they have to pass through the same qualifying exams and belong to a professional accreditation body to be called as doctors or lawyers.

Beyond passing qualifying exams, there is another more binding control, that is performance. They are continuously evaluated on performance and if they don’t deliver performance to their clients, the clients will desert them. It is a ruthless world of professionals and they don’t have the luxury of any buffer or scaffolding or safety nets. They have to build their professional competency patiently and professionally in spite of having a head start.

The world of sports and movies is even more ruthless because the stakes are high here. Here, whatever may the lineage, the spectators and audience decide. One may be the son or daughter of a leading sports person who might also be playing the same game, but that can only give him a start. Beyond that, it is only his talent which can take him to places. No amount of push can ensure a place in bigger teams and even if they get in, there is the nightmare of getting exposed and sneered before the spectators. This is a big dread and so, neither parents nor their offspring venture beyond a point. 

If it is a movie, again the audience's approval also matters. The actor may not be facing the audience, but it will show up in subsequent bookings. There have been many cases of sons or daughters who started well, but could not sustain because they could not compete through the process. They drop at various stages if they are not up to the mark. They can carry on depending on their threshold levels of self-esteem and large pockets of their fathers, but they have to eventually drop off if they decide to be graceful. A family or dynasty may be willing to lose any amount of money, but it cannot make the audience see the movie even by paying for their tickets.

The gist of the argument is that in professional careers, there are various levels of hurdles to be crossed like qualifications, sustained performance, and meeting the expectations of the market. Market is like a juggernaut which rolls on unmindful of all pulls and pressures.  Everybody is worried about their money and sorry, no loyalties. There are rarely cases of offspring who are failures foisted on patients or litigants or spectators or audience, and it doesn’t simply work that way.

As a caveat, it should be mentioned that in all the fields mentioned above there are pedigrees who have performed exceedingly well.

In the case of large family-owned business houses, they train their sons and daughters by making them work from the floor level and climb the ladder, though may be on a fast track. If they are not still at the level of taking over their empire, the father may set up a separate business for him and de-risk the main business. The family efforts will be to keep the flagship business intact. If a parent has more than one son, he may promote the most eligible son and give enough shares for the other sons to satisfy their egos. Till the parents are alive they will be able to maintain the arrangement. After that, it is the survival of the fittest. The family may propose but the market will dispose. Markets continuously work on the principle of selection and elimination.  In some cases, the fall is faster, in some cases it is slower, but it works regardless. 

This might have been true of kingdoms also. I am not an historian and wouldn’t venture much with illustration from epics and kingdoms. The hypothesis that the case of three generations continuously sustained ‘high performance’ is a rarity. One instance that I know in the lineage of Tamil Kingdoms is the glory of the great king Rajendra Cholan, who succeeded his father Raja Raja Cholan who was equally great. In history, it is very difficult to find instances of continuous succession of successful kings for two or more generations. The Empires might have continued but just by surviving, struggling and reviving.  

Oddity of Politics

Somehow politics seems to defy all these hypotheses. Politics in India at least, seems to be a field with no rules of the game and referees. Ideally the electoral system should be acting like the market system which facilitates the process of selection and elimination of leaders. Of course, we will not talk of the qualifications as we believe in equal opportunity, and that lack of qualification is not a handicap to be a leader and it has been vindicated. The first cause of failure is the weak inner party democracy. In western democracies, parties have a robust system of selection of leaders. In India, the internal democracy is weak, and at least at the level of the top tier, leadership position at National or State level, the selection happens by anointment. In some parties, in national and more so in regional parties, it happens purely by birth. Somehow India happens to have inherited this pattern, thanks to the Nehru family. We seem to follow the informal village panchayat model, wherein the son of the village headman takes over from his father. MLAs’ sons get nominated as MLAs, MP’s sons take over as MP, etc, and their offspring get paradropped directly as Ministers, or CMs or even PM, if possible.

There is nothing in the democratic system to regulate the progression of a leader. There is no systemic selection process of leaders at the party level. There are no performance obligations. A person can continuously fail, and there is a system to continuously pop him up in the interest of everybody’s survival. Imagine if a lawyer continuously loses cases or doctors mishandle patients, and their followers keep blaming the legal system or hospital systems. The professionals will be forced to wind up. Medical or legal professions also face information asymmetry and agency problems, and the market correction may take time. But it gets done. In the political arena, the market or political correction seems to take more than one generation. 

The Ecosystem of the Mediocre

There is an Ecosystem to keep the Mediocre leaders shining and going in all domains. In the professional domain, they get side-lined to mentor roles and as far as possible away from client handling roles. In sports and movies, they get accommodated as commentators or in associations. The political field is where it poses a problem as they refuse to call it a day. The challenge for them lies in living without power and paraphernalia. The challenge for them is to be relevant and in the reckoning. These mis-placed leaders fit the agenda of their cohorts in their parties, media, think tanks, NGOs who are equally out of reckoning. They try to keep their leader propped up, and also make themselves indispensable.       

The party spends huge money to keep the leader in the fray and there will be dispensable followers who are there to adopt the losses. The ecosystem fosters such unerring loyalty and some cabal leaders thrive in such situations. Recent development is that some political and electoral consultants have joined the fray; smelling money and they have now taken up the task of branding, repositioning and relaunching the dynastic leader.

In ancient times, when a young king was appointed, they would also appoint one regent from the King’s Court who would guide him till he could take over. Being such a regent is a dream job for many of the political aspirants. This regent will be supported by a ring of inner circle of advisors who will shield their future leader. The task of the regent is to keep the seat warm for the young king to take over, but never to eye it.  A whole ecosystem gets manifested to keep the failed leader in the saddle.

Some Quick Fixes

Finally, what is the big deal about dynastic politics? The critical issue is that parents who are professionals decide which son or daughter is the best fit in terms of capability and talent to take over. Other children will be diverted to other lines. Even farmers decide which son is best fit to manage their land. Other offspring will be sent to cities to seek jobs. But in the political field, the consideration seems to be opposite. The most talented offspring are sent to professional fields or even abroad for studies; while the untrainable is inducted into politics. Such is their confidence in politics. Again, as a caveat, there are leaders at National and State level who have inherited power and are talented; but they can be counted.

This scenario of dynastic succession in politics is unavoidable. It is in the very nature of politics or at the most should be seen as a design flaw. BJP has so far managed to follow a strict policy of not allowing dynastic politics. It may be forced to accommodate when any crisis arises in the future. The parties need to come in terms with suitable policies, otherwise this can be more detrimental than election funding issues. The parties should prescribe the qualification of candidates, clean chit on criminal records, record of social service; and the offspring should ideally start from the ground level. They should never be allowed to contest from their father’s constituency or posted to their father’s position directly. If the father is a MP, his successor should first win as MLA before being considered as a MP candidate. If the successors want to contest from their father’s constituency, they can do it after a gap of five years. If they are still able to nurture the constituency for five years, they can contest. If they lose twice consecutively, they should not contest for another five years.

One cannot grow a leadership pipeline without de-weeding spent leaders. There should be policies like nobody should contest for more than twice for the same post whether it is a party post or an electoral post. Sadly, there is no trigger for change because there is no pressure from the voters, so why should they reform.

 

Image Credits: Noun Project.com

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