Dynastic Politics

Permit-raj for bonsais

Recalling how India’s permit-raj throttled even telephone connections, the poster presents Aatish Taseer’s argument that the Congress ran an internal permit-raj, cultivating bonsai leaders who never grow big enough to…

Brown Pundits Archive21 May 20140 comments
Aatish Taseer has the final word (NaMo vs. RaGa)

Praises Aatish Taseer’s article on why elites like Rahul Gandhi lost and may never rule India, with quoted passages on Modi’s mocking of poverty as a state of mind and…

Brown Pundits Archive21 May 20141 comment
Congratulations to India

A short comment calling the mandate for Modi clear despite India’s diversity, and suggesting he may do well as PM because he has no family beyond the nation.

Brown Pundits Archive16 May 20140 comments
Modi is King, BJP crushes Congress

The poster feels elation tempered by misgivings at a BJP majority, arguing the Congress dynasty collapsed under its own weight. It sees the key result as the failure of regional…

Brown Pundits Archive16 May 20140 comments
“Are you Priyanka?”

Using a report in which Amethi voters do not recognise Priyanka Gandhi, the poster argues VIP constituencies remain neglected and hopes Rahul, Sonia and Varun Gandhi, and Modi in Varanasi,…

Brown Pundits Archive3 May 20140 comments
Will “jamai-babu” go to jail?

The author predicts that a Modi government will not target Sonia Gandhi or her children but may go after her son-in-law Robert Vadra, as a BJP leader has already said,…

Brown Pundits Archive21 April 20140 comments
The new un-touchables are rising

A short argument that Indian political dynasties, which held 29 per cent of seats in 2009, form a new untouchable caste of power, and that Brahmanism will outlast Brahmins because…

Brown Pundits Archive27 March 20141 comment
Dravidas of the world unite (no brotherly love)

A comment on the expulsion of M. K. Alagiri from the DMK and the anointing of M. K. Stalin, setting the family feud against dynastic quarrels from Aurangzeb and Dara…

Brown Pundits Archive25 March 20141 comment
The neo-feudalists

A comment on film star Pawan Kalyan’s political entry and Chiranjeevi’s ministerial post, as examples of an Indian neo-feudalism in which families keep sons in different parties to stay close…

Brown Pundits Archive22 March 20140 comments
You gotta love the Bhutto-Z kids

A link to a video of the Bhutto-Zardari siblings, with the poster’s comment on hereditary princeling antics and the weak state of Sindhi in India.

Brown Pundits Archive1 February 20141 comment