Nothing like the Mughals

Succession among Mughals was determined through merit, unlike the uncontested, single-nomination election of Rahul Gandhi

Is the transition of Congress leadership from Sonia Gandhi to her son akin to Mughal succession? Party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar thought so and asked, rhetorically, whether there had been an election transferring power from Jahangir to Shah Jahan and from Shah Jahan to Aurangzeb. The Congress was like the great Mughals, and rule would be passed on automatically to the heir, he implied.

The prime minister, who we must concede is one of the best speakers in politics anywhere in the world, pounced on this and warned against ‘Aurangzeb raj’, which apparently Rahul Gandhi will usher.

The answer to the question we began with is that the Mughals had no automatic succession like there is in the Congress party. The Mughals did not believe in primogeniture, meaning the right of the first born to inherit, as is the case with most monarchies. The Chaghatai Turks were a sort of confederacy of tribes. They did not take easily to being dominated by any one individual, as Babur knew, leave alone be comfortable with the idea of being handed over as property to the individual’s progeny. Succession was determined through merit and usually through the shedding of blood.

Indeed, the two cases cited by Aiyar and repeated by Modi demonstrate that. Shah Jahan had to kill his way to power, murdering his brothers after the passing away of Jahangir. He was personally useless at fighting, as his father Jahangir also was, and it was in fact Shah Jahan’s in-laws that did the killing for him. This is why he was beholden to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who was gifted the Taj Mahal.

Illustration by Binay Sinha

Aurangzeb, who was hated by his father, went to war against the armies of his brothers, and killed all of them, Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja and Murad Baksh, to become emperor. This is a very different manner of elevation than the uncontested, single-nomination election of Rahul Gandhi. We are free to criticise or praise the Congress succession, but it would be incorrect to drag in the Mughals and they are the wrong example to point to.

Dynastic succession in fact has not been common in our parts. This is one reason why, unlike Europe, India has no real aristocracy and has never had one. This may seem strange because we are identified as being a culture full of rajas and zamindars, but it is true. The Mughal noble did not have the right to leave his wealth to children. On the death of a general or a governor, all the titles and fixed assets that an individual possessed were transferred back to the emperor for him to give another, often leaving the family in penury once the baubles had been spent. Each generation of servants had to make its own way in the world, starting from scratch, a true system of merit that we will find difficult to comprehend. This was different from Europe with its generations of counts and dukes and so on with their estates held for centuries. In India it was only with the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 that the servants managed to hold on to their estates, resisting the instructions of a weakened Delhi. The most famous such instance is the Nizam of Hyderabad, who built a seven-generation dynasty. It is after as late as the 18th century that many of our modern royal families like the Gaekwads and the Scindias, really come to be.

Let’s consider the larger point that Aiyar was making, which was that dynastic succession on the sub-continent has a cultural acceptance. This is of course true. We in our modern, anglicised world are thought to recoil against the idea. It is our middle-class upbringing, conditioned by white collar jobs which we have secured through ‘merit’ that makes us uncomfortable with dynastic politics. But on the other hand it is the same middle class that thinks of people as coming from ‘good families’. This is also another way of approving dynasty, through the notion that there is something in the genes of quality that is passed on.

One area where dynasty is not only accepted but approved by the same middle class is Bollywood, where charisma can transfer almost automatically, as the Kapoor clan has shown repeatedly. And so while we may not have had much of a history of dynastic succession, we do not necessarily disapprove of it. That is the reason why there is no real popular resistance to the idea of Rahul Gandhi being crowned in the way that he is. Though Modi can make a few heads nod because of the reference to Aurangzeb, there aren’t many voters he will manage to sway on the issue of dynasty alone.

The more interesting aspect is: Why is there no internal resistance to the dynasty in the Congress? The answer is that of course there is. Just like the Mughal satrap, far from Delhi, who held on to what he could by force, the Congress strongman has also done this. Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee show that where they can carve out something to own for themselves, they will do so. If the Congress remains as weak as it is in northern India, this sort of splintering will happen again.

It is as the national level that the Congress, perhaps because it is so diverse, has not found someone internal to challenge the Gandhis. The two, who tried last, Sitaram Kesari and PV Narasimha Rao, found that there was something talismanic in the Gandhi name that they could not overcome.