When dynasties are dinosaurs

Photo: trebord.wordpress.com

Provision is an accounting word for liability of uncertain timing and uncertain amount. Certain costs or expenses will happen but their timing of incurrence or exact sums may not be known in definite terms. We make provisions in budget. We make provisions in business. It may sound unreal but why don't we do the same thing in this nation's future? Shall we say, give two terms of government to dynastic politics and then ask them to go away!
I say two terms because it would fairly give one term to each side. We need to provide for one scion of each political dynasty waiting in line. The aspirations are getting obvious, like images emerge in a darkroom when photos are moved from tray to tray. From the posters on the walls, speeches in the meetings and moods of party supporters, it's likely that our political future won't settle for anything less than at least two rounds of dynastic rule. We are probably going to need to give at least one round to each of the two heir-apparents.
This doesn't mean two terms are going to be sufficient. Our best hope is that more than one term for each dynasty isn't going to be necessary. Mind it we are talking about provision here, not precision. Many things are hard to predict because life is always full of surprises. Who could ever tell that Eyjafjallajökull, a funny-named volcano in Iceland, could spew so much ash so high in the sky that it forced the airports of Europe to shut down, costing the aviation industry $200 million a day.
It's exactly for that same reason that we should make provision. We don't know what is going to happen. We don't know if and when our politics is going to come out of this dynastic loop. Democracy is about popular choice, and when people choose, it leaves no other choice. Funny that it should come to this. The right to rule the lives of many should run in the family of few.
It appears that when people choose these few amongst them, it turns into infatuation. Nothing explains why the Indians should like five generations in the Nehru lineage. Why should Pakistani politics rotate around three generations of Bhuttos? And, what explains the Camelot and three generations of Kennedys in American politics? Two Bushes became presidents. Luck is obvious, but, gosh, who should ever find them charming!
But public adoration has its obvious perils. Two Nehru descendants have been killed. Two Bhuttos have been brutally eliminated. Likewise, two Kennedys have died violent deaths. Two generations have ruled this country from either side, and one of each has been assassinated.
Still, dynastic politics remains in full force. The Times of India ran a story on state elections in April 2001 that termed India as "a democracy of dynasties, for dynasties and by dynasties." India is supposed to be the largest democracy in the world, but it also has the oldest-running dynastic rule in the modern context. The fifth generation is warming up, while it doesn't run deeper than three generations in other countries.
Democracy has its inherent weakness. The power of choice that is invested in people renders them powerless. It's an irony that a dynasty is created by the same absurd choice that is supposed to resist it. Quantity not quality drives its agenda. Popularity is more important than perspicacity.
Here is a simple illustration. Five people are sitting in a room. Three of them are men, and two of them women. One of the men proposes a new law making it legal for a man to rape a woman. Three men vote yes. It forms the brute majority and democracy goes into action.
Unfortunately, dynasties are born out of similar fallacy, collective stupidity disguised in collective wisdom. People choose their own indignity. Dynasty is monarchy by popular mandate. And, that mandate has produced a rare phenomenon in this country. We live in perhaps the only double-dynasty country in the modern world where two families have been ruling us in their revolving-door politics.
Where does it end, and will it ever end? We don't know and that's all the more reason why we should make provision. We should give ourselves a deadline, and give them a deadline. It will build awareness. Awareness will build willingness. Willingness will build readiness.
Louis Philippe said after the July Revolution in France: "What perished in France in 1830 was not respect for a dynasty, but respect for anything." All dynasties perish sooner or later if they outlive the welcome. People become disillusioned and when that happens it explodes like volcanoes.
When that explosion happens, we would still like to respect them. Provided our dynasties don't behave like dinosaurs. They should go before a meteor hits to destroy them.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a columnist for The Daily Star.
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