Opinion Let them fight

There is reason to cheer the uncle-nephew fight in the Samajwadi Party. What makes it exceptional is that disagreements within the family that control a party rarely plays out in the open: The patriarch mediates among warring family members and declares a truce. In this case, Mulayam Singh Yadav, head honcho of the SP, allowed the fight between his brother and son to spill over into public platforms and took sides, interestingly, in favour of his brother. The brother, Shivpal Yadav, having demonstrated that he has the confidence of Mulayam, has now refused to be drawn into a fight with his nephew and UP chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh had taken key portfolios from Shivpal after Mulayam made his brother the SP’s UP unit chief. That’s the CM’s prerogative, Shivpal told the media on Thursday. With less than six months left for assembly elections, Shivpal will hold the key to ticket distribution. The raucous debate in the SP may seem a family matter, but when family alone matters in the running of the party, such events, in full public view with rare transparency, become refreshing and liberating. It may even encourage dissenters in other parties to open up.

Besides, the issues that triggered infighting in the SP have a political dimension. Akhilesh wasn’t far off the mark when he said, “What you are witnessing is a fight in the government, not the family.” The unrest among SP brass can be traced to matters like how a party ought to expand its reach in modern times and what should be the relations between the party and its government. Shivpal — also Mulayam — prefers political outreach through patronage and tactical alliances with community leaders whereas Akhilesh wants to transcend identity politics and have his development agenda speak for his party and government. This battle of generations in the family for turf also bears witness to a party — and polity — in transition.

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That it has taken the form of a chacha-bhatija duel only reflects a structural anomaly in Indian democracy — the domination of the dynasty over party affairs. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley once wondered if 15 families controlled the balance of power in Indian politics.

Barring the Left parties and the BJP, most Indian political outfits are run by families, including the grand old party, the Congress — many of them, ironically, grew out of mass movements and initially led by leaders who emerged from the grassroots. The patriarch or matriarch who heads the party is not accountable to anyone: Non-dynasty members can’t question them and expect to stay on. The fight in the SP revealed shades of inner-party democracy, even if it resembled low comedy at times. There needs to be more such duels in other dynasty outfits as well.