Why Personality Politics Is Weakening Indian Democracy

At a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November 2010, US President Barack Obama’s companions included Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul. Obama seemed to have been briefed that Sonia was grooming Rahul to be India’s Prime Minister, so Obama was not surprised that she kept directing the conversation towards him. Sadly, the 40-year-old Rahul made a poor impression. There was “a nervous, unformed quality about him”, Obama wrote in his memoir A Promised Land. “Unformed” is a rarely used word, which implied Rahul was somehow incomplete. He was like a student, Obama explained, “eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject”.

Now, over 15 years later, the historian Ramachandra Guha has kicked up a storm by trashing Rahul for lack of discipline, gravitas, and a curriculum vitae. As evidence that Rahul lacks “political intelligence” and “charisma”, Guha points to the Congress party’s near electoral demise in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. There is little chance, Guha concludes, that Rahul will rebuild the Congress as a credible alternative to the BJP.

Guha’s is a worthy critique and some of his critics are less than persuasive. Shashi Tharoor, for example, suggests that Rahul could blossom as a new-day Obama. Really? More interesting is the journalist Pius Fozan’s rejoinder: the BJP has overwhelming advantages, with a “war chest” of electoral funds, potent Hindutva us-versus-them political strategy, and the ability to deploy the state institutions in its favour. Guha’s analysis is naive because, as Fozan correctly notes, individuals rarely move history. Gandhi, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Mao Zedong are among the handful of exceptions of the last century who mobilised masses to create history. Even Obama made only marginal changes to the status quo.

Rahul has many faults, but the problem is that he is just the face of a shell that calls itself a party. His personal successes—Bharat Jodo Yatra and the call for Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation—are bound to be flashy and passing. For social and economic transformation—one that, for example, educates Indian children and creates dignified jobs—the political party must be the instrument to sustain a long-term commitment. The Congress has been eviscerated over generations, which has rendered it incapable of such commitment. Rahul is noteworthy only because he symbolises the broader decay of parties, as the latest Assembly elections demonstrate so vividly.

The victors in the Assembly elections, even when claiming to represent Gen Z causes, have lapsed quickly into old-style politics. I hope I am wrong and the recent outpouring of the frustrations of young Indians through the Cockroach Janta Party coalesces around an institutional framework with a long-term agenda. But for now, put simply, India no longer has political parties. Motley individuals gather under “leaders” and electoral symbols. They do not constitute parties. And without political parties, India is no longer a representative democracy—with all the rottenness that follows.

As the political theorist Robert Dahl explained, a healthy democracy requires robust competition between ideas and principles. Political parties are the bridge between the ideal and reality. They aggregate mass preferences into pragmatic coalitions, organising resources to test competing principles in the electoral arena. Edmund Burke famously argued in the late 18th century that parties must be bodies united around shared principles to promote the national interest and blunt narrow special interests. Multiple parties generate an essential clash of ideas.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s tragedy was that he stifled inner-party democracy to ward off Hindutva forces within the Congress, but those forces merely lay latent to emerge after his death. Here, India’s first Prime Minister at an event in London in 1957. | Photo Credit: Bob Haswell/Getty Images

When this process breaks down, as has happened in India, ideological hollowing and transactional politics follow, lack of accountability erodes the system, personal ambition replaces collective governance. Indian politics has become an individual sport for amassing wealth: invest X to earn 5X to 10X. A former student of mine told me of a family friend in Maharashtra who has contested successive elections, each time on a different “party” ticket. He does not feign allegiance to an idea. Winning once would set him up for life. Corporate and crime-tainted money is invested in bigger fish that can deliver a return on the investment. Every party espouses an undifferentiated competitive populism: ever-more expensive handouts, in the garb of “welfarism”, which breaks State Budgets and pacifies individuals but does not build capabilities for the future.

Consider the latest Assembly elections.

The outsider and mega film star C. Joseph Vijay, and his party, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), surprised everyone by winning in Tamil Nadu. Because he fell short of an absolute majority, Rahul’s Congress “party”, with its paltry five seats—and an alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) within the fold of the so-called INDIA bloc—jumped ship without missing a heartbeat to join Vijay. What could have been the principle? Power and money?

Vijay himself had tapped into Tamil Nadu’s disillusioned youth and first-time voters, leveraging his fan clubs to victory. He is the Gen Z leader of one of the most enlightened States in the country. He stands, he says—as has every politician since Independence—for equality, social justice, secularism, rooting out corruption, and helping women.

What is Vijay’s agenda? His manifesto promised an expansive menu of cash transfers, free LPG cylinders, wedding gifts of saris and gold, subsidised higher education, government jobs, unemployment stipends, free electricity, stipends for female household heads, a women’s safety initiative, and farm loan waivers. The manifesto also promises a $1.5-trillion economy with a dedicated AI Ministry. Is this the “change” Tamil Nadu’s youth deserve?

This is the Gen Z version of Jayalilthaa, the supremo of the venerable All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). She must be smiling in her afterworld abode: Vijay’s innovation is shiny AI in place of her free laptops. He also seems to have the virus of her authoritarian streak: days after taking office as Chief Minister, he pushed the police to investigate his critics.

Rahul’s Congress landed two lucrative financial machines. Higher Education controls a multi-thousand crore budget for laptops, campus tenders, and university appointments. The financial footprint of this portfolio is poised to expand significantly under the roadmap outlined in the TVK election manifesto via state-funded, AI-powered competitive examination coaching centres, student loan guarantees, and internship programmes. Tourism offers agile, cash-rich authority over multi-crore infrastructure tenders, event budgets, and real estate holdings via state-owned holiday resorts, hotels, and beaches.

“The real Trinamool is Mamata,” according to party MP Mahua Moitra. Here, Mamata Banerjee addressing a rally in Kolkata on July 21. | Photo Credit: ANI

In Bengal, a revealing discussion unfolded after the Trinamool Congress lost to the BJP—a loss likely hastened by the Election Commission’s massive deletion in voter rolls. When a breakaway group also donned the Trinamool name, Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra angrily asked, "What is a party?” “It is the leader and the symbol,” she answered. “The real Trinamool is Mamata.” The clarity of the answer is striking even if it represents a cringeworthy view. The contest, in her view, was about a name—no principle, ideology, or larger interest was at stake. Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose repeated: “Trinamool Congress is Mamata Banerjee. Mamata Banerjee is Trinamool Congress.” Neither Moitra nor Ghose made the case that the Mamata Banerjee’s nearly 15-year chief ministerial tenure in West Bengal had educated children, improved their health, or opened more work opportunities for its young.

The moral standing of Mamata’s “real Trinamool” had unravelled amid deep structural rot. The notorious teacher recruitment scam traded government positions for cash bribes. Local extortion syndicates connected to the party’s officials and campaign financing—long entrenched in Bengal’s political landscape—had flourished in the construction business. The government was further tainted by the brutal rape and murder of a student doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College and the institutional failures that followed. The Supreme Court reprimanded the administration for the delay in registering the crime and for failing to secure forensic evidence at the scene. The Enforcement Directorate’s subsequent allegation of a massive bribery, kickback, and money laundering racket run by the college principal deepened the crisis.

To shatter Mamata’s pro-poor armour, the BJP responded not with a competing vision—to educate people, improve health, and create more good jobs—but instead by outbidding her flagship doles. Its election promise doubled her Lakshmir Bhandar women’s cash transfer payout and introduced a youth unemployment allowance. It promised to implement the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat free healthcare scheme, but without any hint on how its many challenges and failures would be addressed—catastrophic out-of-pocket expenses for patients, poorly equipped and large numbers of inactive empanelled hospitals, delays in and denials of payments to doctors, and audit reports of fraud. The promises included clearing of deep State employee salary arrears, but without a plan to bring the State’s troubled finances into a sustainable equilibrium.

In Kerala, the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) lost power after a decade of governance under Pinarayi Vijayan. Despite its socialist facade, the administration stood accused of a series of corruption allegations and—like virtually every other “party”—a preference for environmentally damaging big-money projects in the name of “development”. Among the most visible corruption scandals were the Life Mission housing graft, systemic cooperative bank scams, and gold smuggling allegations. Crucially also, environmental activists and voters protested the government’s aggressive backing of the Adani Vizhinjam Port project, which displaced coastal fishing communities. Mega-infrastructure projects and unregulated quarrying led to widespread deforestation and ecological ravages across the fragile Western Ghats.

The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) manifesto countered the Left not with structural reforms but with its own package of income support and unemployment assistance. They committed to immediately disbursing long-delayed social security pensions and frozen State employee dearness allowances, as the BJP did in Bengal, without a plan for addressing the State’s mountain of debt.

In Kerala, the Congress victory exposed a complete absence of inner-party democracy, defaulting instead to a feudal ritual. Rather than a democratic ballot, legislators abdicated their franchise to the Delhi “high command”. Bypassing a State-level prerogative, New Delhi handpicked V.D. Satheesan via central patronage. The new Cabinet thus represents bruised factional egos rather than an ideological programme.

Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Kerala—the names change, the specific promises respond to the historical legacy, but the agenda remains the same. The “welfare” promises made by the new winners are not just fiscally generous, arguably irresponsible, they are lazy substitutes for pressing economic and institutional reform.

With the energy and success associated with the Cockroach Janta Party, many today are ready to declare a new dawn of Indian democracy. Here, supporters of the outfit clash with the police in New Delhi on July 20, when the “Sansad Chalo” march took the country by surprise with its scale and the boldness of its participants. | Photo Credit: ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/REUTERS

Each of these three States was already under varying degrees of fiscal stress—especially Kerala, where the previous regime had accumulated massive State pension and employee liabilities. Fiscal populism has nevertheless triumphed, whether it is Vijay’s handouts and high-tech pledges in Tamil Nadu, the BJP’s outbidding of the Lakshmir Bhandar cash transfer in Bengal, or the UDF in Kerala adding promises to a severely cash-strapped treasury. The evidence, such as it is, suggests that the institutional spaces in which corruption flourishes have widened.

Consider the criminal charges and assets of the winning candidates, as reported by the Association for Democratic Reform. The victorious Congress in Kerala gets the championship ring, with 75 per cent of its winning candidates charged with serious crimes, which include murder, attempt to murder, and crimes against women. In West Bengal, the BJP is only modestly behind, with 68 per cent of its winning candidates charged with serious crimes. Even in Tamil Nadu, 24 per cent of those who won under the TVK banner are accused of such crimes. And one of the two Congress winners who joined the TVK ministry is also so charged. Everywhere, it is virtually mandatory for the winners to have personal assets in several crores of rupees, with three of the TVK candidates possessing over Rs.500 crore each. We can fool ourselves that such politicians are in the business to serve a public purpose.

Another sign of the disintegration of parties is how easily they collapse when they lose elections. In Tamil Nadu, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which for long held a grip on State politics either as the ruling party or the main contender, has imploded—slowly at first and dramatically after the latest election when some its newly elected MLAs resigned to recontest as Vijay’s TVK members. In Bengal, the Trinamool Congress’ implosion was instantaneous after the loss of majority in the State Assembly, with party members seeking alliance with the BJP. And the same process has unfolded in Maharashtra, where the once redoubtable Shiv Sena has splintered to join forces with the BJP. Sharad Pawar and his clan rotate alliances and party labels with comedic regularity in Maharashtra. The bottom line is hard to miss: membership of a party is valuable only if it can form a government and provide access to power and money. There are no principles: the policies remain unchanging.

We are here because the process started immediately after Independence. The incentives are deeply ingrained, engulfing the entire political system.

Soon after he became India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru took control of the Congress party. The first party president after Independence was not to his liking, and thereafter either he or a person handpicked by him was made president. Inner-party democracy evaporated. The party held together only because voters, spellbound by his charisma, returned him to power repeatedly with large majorities despite little improvement in their economic conditions. The party’s members stayed together because the rest was political wilderness.

Nehru’s tragedy was that he stifled inner-party democracy to ward off Hindutva forces within the Congress, but those forces merely lay latent to emerge after his death. Jana Sangh, the then flagbearer for Hindutva, began a rocky ascent.

After Nehru died, the Congress that had led India’s Independence movement began to splinter. In 1969, Indira Gandhi broke from that historic party, carrying the Congress label with a suffix added to it and a new symbol. Under her absolute grip, an acolyte party president said, “India is Indira and Indira is India.” She legitimised political corruption at the highest levels of government, symbolised most openly by her son, Sanjay; but if insider reporting is accurate, the corruption flowed directly from her. As if to deflect personal criticism, corruption, she famously said, was a global phenomenon.

The die was cast. Personalisation of parties became the norm, corruption filled the interstices of India’s political system.

Indian politics will revolve “around religion, clan, and caste”, concluded US President Barack Obama from his 2010 visit, during which he found in Rahul Gandhi a “nervous, unformed quality”. Here, the two of them at Rashtrapati Bhavan on November 8, 2010. | Photo Credit: B. MATHUR/REUTERS

Today, even the BJP is a party only in the sense that it espouses an us-versus-them Hindutva as a powerful political tool. But it, too, is leader-centred and centrally controlled, with little or no inner-party democracy or tolerance for internal competition over ideas. The scale of continuous defections to the BJP—often involving politicians who previously represented entirely different parties and stated ideologies—demonstrates how power has become the organising principle, a magnet for political opportunists. In the past, parties tended to collapse when they lost, but now the BJP, intent on entrenching itself, is actively hoovering up the opportunists.

And when power, money, and opportunism become so central, parties no longer embody public or institutional interests. Instead, political competition becomes a struggle for control of state resources. Slogans substitute for policy. Competitive handouts become the common platform. Even so-called communists pursue environmentally destructive policies and pander to big business. New leaders, claiming to represent Gen Z aspirations, resort to old-style state coercion of critics. Vijay’s tenure as Chief Minister has begun with police raids, investigations, or arrests for perceived criticism of the new administration. The labels change, the leaders change, the rhetoric adapts—but the underlying political incentives and behaviour remain rigidly constant.

With the energy and success associated with the Cockroach Janta Party, many today are ready to declare a new dawn of Indian democracy. Time will tell if the new idealists can not only cast deserved shame on those in power but also summon the fortitude to build a new politics. Until they do so, voters will show up. Democracy will continue to betray their aspirations.

Make no mistake, Rahul Gandhi is not the problem, nor Mamata Banerjee, Vijay, or any other individual. The problem is not even that Indian political parties are corrupt. The problem is that parties have ceased to exist in a substantive sense. Instead of politics aggregating around principles, individuals have become the focal point. Wherein lies the hope?

In the current political climate, no one even offers a better idea for educating children or creating more jobs for the young. No one is accountable for the mess of suicide-inducing coaching centres that feed into compromised national exams. Has anyone been held responsible for polluted air, garbage mountains, dying rivers, and disappearing forests and biodiversity? No one is even accountable for the siphoning off of funds from the Ram Janmabhoomi temple—the construction of which emerged from mindless bloodshed and placed a Hindutva-lite veneer on the judiciary. Institutions are compromised, State budgets are stretched to breaking point. No one is accountable for that either. As Obama concluded from his 2010 visit, Indian politics will revolve “around religion, clan, and caste”. There is no reason to expect change.

Ashoka Mody retired from Princeton University. He previously worked for the World Bank and the IMF. He is the author of India is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today (2023).

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