Brushing up on some history, I read about how powerful dynasties in the 8th and 9th centuries fought themselves into exhaustion over the kingdom of Kannauj in north India, oblivious to the first Arab invaders who conquered Sindh in 712CE. 

Today, the prize of Uttar Pradesh is being fought over by three modern armies: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 

The latter-day Kannauj, by the way, is represented in the LS by Dimple Yadav, whose husband Akhilesh is UP chief minister. He appears to have won his struggle with his father Mulayam Singh Yadav for control of the SP, although many believe the entire saga was scripted by the elder Yadav to keep the spotlight away from Modi and the BJP Why else did Mulayam not fight harder for the SP’s election symbol, the bicycle, after father and son came close to splitting the party? 

The UP election has been billed a referendum on Modi’s policies, most specifically on the pain inflicted by his decision to demonetise high denomination banknotes. But the state remains a cauldron of caste, religion and dynasty. The BJP’s shock victory in the 2014LSelection (it won 71 of UP’s 80 seats, and its ally Apna Dal two) was checked a little by two dynasties: the Gandhis, mother and son, and five members of Mulayam’s family won the remaining seven. 

Has that triumph made the BJP more determined to seek a more ‘secular’ vote away from caste, religion and dynasts? Let’s look at caste, UP already has 79 officially recognised Other Backward Castes (OBCs). Last November the Modi government added 15 more castes to the national OBC list. The BJP’s UP chief, Keshav Prasad Maurya, is a Kushwaha OBC. Like the ruling Yadav’s, the BJP is not averse to combining caste and dynasty. Its most prominent OBC politician, Kalyan Singh, belongs to the powerful Lodh caste. Singh, who was UP CM during the demolition of the Babri Masjid and has pushed for a Ram temple in Ayodhya, is currently governor of Rajasthan. His son Rajveer is MP from the Etah, and his grandson Sandeep is the BJP candidate for the Atrauli seat in these elections. 

Nothing loath, Mayawati is also flighting hard to win back power in what used to be a see-saw change of ruling party The Dalit leader is taking no caste/religious chances and has nominated 97 Muslim candidates, 87 Dalits, 106 OBCs, and 113 from upper castes, The SP’s alliance with the Congress party may upset the BJP’s calculus. A mahagathbandan (grand alliance) that included the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) might have clinched a second term for Akhilesh. Here again history reared its head. RLD leader Ajit Singh had twice in the past undercut Mulayam, first by toppling him as leader of the opposition in the state assembly in 1986 and then trying to block him from becoming chief minister in 1989. 

The RLD now cuts a sorry figure, with only nine legislators in the 403-seat UP assembly. It is a tragedy, because Ajit’s father Charan Singh, briefly prime minister in 1979-80, was the political progenitor of a phalanx of leaders, including Mulayam, who built their power around pro-farmer and caste ideologies. 

The Yadavs comprise 44% of UP’s population, but the Muslim vote, traditionally tilted towards the SP, could hold the key. According to the 2011 Census, Muslims totalled 38.5 m, or 19.2% of UP’s population of 199.8 m. 

Latest projections show the state’s population has risen to about 210 million. That is neck and neck with Brazil, which would make UP the world’s fifth most populous country if it were independent. 

We are hearing a lot of talk about development from Modi and Akhilesh. How has UP fared under the SP and before that the BSP? UP’s Gross State Domestic Product rose marginally to $174.95 b in 2015/16 from $146.20 b in 2011/12 under SP rule. In contrast, GSDP rose sharply during Mayawati’s 2007-2012 tenure-it was $74.5 b in her first year back in power in 2006/07. Akhilesh was hobbled for much of his term by intra-party fissures, so it is not clear if voters will decide he deserves a second term. For his part, Modi has donned a more strident anti-corruption, pro-poor avatar: 

Although the Supreme Court has banned politicians from seeking votes on caste or religious lines, as the UP election unfolds over four weeks and seven phases starting Feb.11, expect hotheads on all sides to test the limits. The pundits say the outcome in UP will make or break the remainder of Modi’s term, that it will foretell the 2019 general election, and that it will even decide if Modi forges on with his reform agenda. They said that about the Bihar election in 2015 too. There, the Yadav-Kurmi-Muslim vote ensured a second term for Nitish Kumar, but that did not deter Modi from pursuing his national agenda. 

The choice is clearer in Punjab, which votes on Feb. 4: the Badal family which has ruled the state for ten years, has led it to rack and ruin. Corruption on an epic scale combined with drugs, crime and a resurgence of pro-Khalistan elements all cry out for change. But whether that change should mean propelling the Aam Aadmi Party into power, or a return to the entitled-feudatory style of the Amarinder Singh-led Congress party is the question. 

If we cannot get away from dynasties, are they good? 

The answer is a resounding ‘No’ if you read a recent paper by two Hyderabad-based financial economists, Prasanna Tantri of the Indian School of Business and Nagaraju Thota of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science. In their data-based study titled ‘Inherent Quality or Nepotism? Analysis of Political Dynasties in a Democracy’, Tantri and Thota found that there were 97 dynast MPs in the 14th LS (2004-9); that number rose to 136 in the 15th LS. To sharpen the study, the researchers focused on 197 dynast MPs who had narrowly defeated their nearest opponent, and 45 non-dynast MPs who had narrowly defeated dynastic rivals. This field was further narrowed to 130 constituencies based on a median margin of victory of 8.4%. 

Their main findings: 

1. Per capita GDP growth, not annualised but across the five-year terms, was lower by anywhere between 7.8% to 20.5%, depending on actual victory margins in constituencies represented by dynasts when compared to constituencies represented by comparable non dynasts. Similarly, per worker GDP growth was lower anywhere between 8.7% to 25.2%. “Interestingly, the economic magnitude (or impact) is the largest when we restrict our sample to elections with 3% or less margin, “Tantri told me. 
2. Growth in crime was higher in constituencies represented by dynasts by anywhere between 15.3% to 79.7%. 
3. The researchers did not find statistically significant differences in terms of social sector spending, job creation, public sector investments and infrastructure development between ‘treatment (Le. constituencies where dynast MPs narrowly won) and ‘control’ constituencies where non-dynast MPs narrowly won. 
4. Tantri and Thota also studied ‘individual efforts’ by dynasts. They found that parliamentary attendance by dynastic lawmakers was lower by anywhere between 4.6% and 20% in contrast with comparable non-dynasts. 
5. Finally, the researches looked at the percentage utilisation of MP Local Area Development Scheme funds. Here again, dynasts underperformed by anywhere between 21.1% to 55.7%. 

 

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