Seeking to dissuade his own supporters from canvassing for another term for him as president of the Indian National Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru famously penned a pseudonymous column in the Modern Review (1937), published from Calcutta, assuming the name Chanakya, drawing attention to his own weaknesses and warning the party against “tendencies towards autocracy”. “He calls himself a democrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately slave to the heart ... Jawahar has all the makings of a dictator in him — vast popularity, a strong will, ability, hardness, an intolerance for others and a certain contempt for the weak and inefficient..,” the article said, adding, “In this revolutionary epoch, Caesarism is always at the door. Is it not possible that Jawahar might fancy himself as a Caesar? ... He must be checked. We want no Caesars.” Years later, in 1950, Nehru’s youngest sister Krishna Hutheesingh was quoted in Time magazine saying, “In the eyes of the world, he is undoubtedly the only man in India who can guide and control her destiny in these difficult times. Nevertheless, there is danger for him and for India if he is spoiled too much with adulation. In his own words, ‘It must be checked. We want no Caesars!’’’
Six decades later, the democratic republic of India is full of Caesars. From the likes of a Bal Thackeray in Mumbai to a Mayawati Kumari in Lucknow, a Karunanidhi in Chennai and a Prakash Singh Badal in Chandigarh, an assortment of political parties, mostly regional, caste-based and communal, are all in the grip of undemocratic leaders, whose parties are run like feudal fiefdoms, with the top leader’s family and relatives being the most important second line of leadership. Below such bigger potentates, there are minor potentates, like in the Mughal Empire, an assortment of mansabdars, like a Chandrashekar Rao in Telangana. Dissent in all these parties means criticising everyone except the top leadership and his or her near and dear.
The only national political parties that have remained immune to such Caesarism have been the Bharatiya Janata Party and the two Communist Parties. Nehru’s own Congress Party has evolved precisely in the manner that Nehru did not want it to. Anyone who has disagreed with the leader at the top has had to eventually leave the party and form another. Internal dissent means criticising one another, not the Caesar at the top. Thus, every Congress member is free to criticise another, and there has been enough of such sparring and internal criticism on display in recent months, with even the prime minister being open to internal party criticism. But not a word can be said against the party president, Sonia Gandhi, and her son Rahul Gandhi. So it is not surprising that Ms Gandhi has got herself yet another term as party president. Even if someone else had been chosen for that post, he or she would have been her choice, beholden to her, at her beck and call.
None of this augurs well for Indian democracy. India needs robust political parties that practise internal democracy, have several national and regional leaders and offer the space and freedom for new challengers to emerge. It is only in the BJP that the likes of an Arun Jaitley and a Sushma Swaraj can even dream of becoming prime minister on their own steam and merit. But, as in a country so in a political party, democracy and the right to dissent are not handed down from above, they have to be demanded and won from below.
