The damage that dynasties do

In recent times, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has warned the government that no dynasties would be permitted in the politics of the country. That statement was significant, not to say intriguing, coming as it did within days of the forty-eighth birthday celebrations of her exiled elder son. A very large number of people in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party went quite overboard in singing paeans to the young man, to a point where a senior figure in the party took it upon himself to inform the nation that the elder child of General Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia was the leader of the sixteen crore people of the country. On what basis he made that revelation remains unclear.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Commission has come forth with news that money stashed away in Singapore by the younger son of the leader of the opposition has been brought back to the country. That made quite a dent in the politics of the BNP, though its leadership tried putting up a brave face to the crisis by calling the ACC move a conspiracy by the ruling circles.
Be that as it may, the point here is the question of dynastic politics. It is quite telling that Begum Zia herself has raised the issue. On a bigger level, the issue is a pretty critical one, seeing that in recent decades dynastic politics has quite stymied the growth of democracy, in that proper sense of the meaning, in the country.
A clear sign of how dynastic politics has been leading to a progressive stultification of pluralist politics comes through the many billboards and posters displayed all across the country. If on one poster it is the images of Bangabandhu, Sheikh Hasina and the latter's son that you spot, there is another where you have Zia, his spouse and their son that you stumble into. And all these images are up there because some local politicians have decided that they need to be noticed by their supreme leaders.
Whether such sycophancy helps in the long run is quite another matter. But the damage that it does to politics is something you certainly cannot miss. On the one hand, it strengthens the hold of the leader on her party, thus rendering difficult the task of promoting a free expression of opinion in the party.
On the other, it informs you that beyond a few families or clans, Bangladesh does not have the capacity to produce leaders for the future. That is not the way things were in the 1960s and the earlier half of the 1970s.
And there lies the danger, which again is accentuated when you observe the trickle-down effects of dynastic politics. If you now have national politics in the grip of two major families, you have local politics getting to be increasingly dominated by smaller dynasties beholden to the bigger ones. And these smaller dynasties are but a reflection of the thought that in the years ahead, politics at the local level will likely turn into an entrenched affair, with the result that political parties per se will tend to atrophy.
Parties and dynasties do not go together. When dynasties get on top of parties, it is politics which goes missing. Recall the Ershad years when his Jatiyo Party was essentially a political weapon in the hands of his family -- his wife and siblings -- to be used at their convenience. That did little good to the Jatiyo Party. In time, individuals like Anwar Hossain Manju, Sheikh Shahidul Islam and Najiur Rahman deserted Ershad and went ahead with giving shape to their own political factions. Najiur Rahman's small party is today in the hands of his son, which is proof once again of how bigger dynasties can sometimes help spawn smaller ones. A.Q.M. Badruddoza's Bikalpadhara could not make much headway because the party, in the public perception, was no more than a father-son team looking for fresh hunting grounds after the departure of Chowdhury and his son Mahi from the BNP.
In these past many years, a growing tendency toward bringing the children of former or deceased politicians into the public domain has only led to enhanced concerns about the future of the democratic process in the country. The sons of M. Mansur Ali, A.H.M. Quamruzzaman and Syed Nazrul Islam occupy important perches in national politics. The son and brother of Tajuddin Ahmed have been part of the political process; and today it is Tajuddin's daughter who represents her father's old constituency in parliament. Ahsanullah Master's son holds his seat in the legislature. Saifur Rahman's son Naser came into politics with his father's blessing. And today the son of President Zillur Rahman not only holds his father's old seat in parliament but also presides over the nation's cricket board as its chief.
The politics of dynasty circumscribes the growth and expansion of liberal democracy. There will, of course, be those who argue that it is the charisma of the dynasties which ensures a continuity of democratic politics. Charisma is all right when it is to be spotted in an individual politician. But in the descendants of politicians, it is more than charisma you look for. You look for ability, that certain grey matter which gives a new dimension to politics.
The unfortunate reality is that once the patriarch of a dynasty or future dynasty has passed from the scene, those who come after him do not measure up to his standards. That has been the lesson everywhere. Worse, these descendants, when they arrive on the scene, put a clamp on the wheels of democracy. And pluralism shuts its doors to those who have it in them to reinvent politics and shape a new political agenda.
Dynastic politics thrives on sycophancy and a false sense of nostalgia. It kills aspirations. It does not permit a flowering of rainbow dreams in a country.

The writer is Executive Editor, The Daily Star.
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