In the family way

Dynasty pervades all aspects of Indian culture

Two similar controversies in Bollywood and national politics unwittingly underlined a malaise afflicting the country’s socio-political culture. The first involved a forthright statement by Kangana Ranaut, one of India’s highest paid actors, on film-maker Karan Johar's signature TV talk show about rampant nepotism in the film industry. Mr Johar, son of a famous film producer, was “the flag-bearer of nepotism,” she said, sparking off a debate that went viral. Later, Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union minister P Chidambaram, equated the Congress and the two principal Tamil Nadu-based parties — Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam — to Family Pvt Ltd Companies. Ms Ranaut, a self-made actor and rated among the industry’s most talented, was talking from a position of strength. Mr Chidambaram, who has been under investigation by the Enforcement Directorate, may have been speaking from the precincts of a glass house. As a Congress spokesman pointed out, he, too, had contested from Sivaganga, the parliamentary seat his father vacated for him. That the younger Chidambaram lost the seat his father had held for seven terms is, in this instance, beside the point. 

Both Ms Ranaut and Mr Chidambaram raised thought-provoking arguments about the all-pervasive nature of family connections in Indian society. Politics and Bollywood are not the only major institutions that reflect this: India's largest corporate groups all are, and remain, family-oriented in their management outlook. The Tata group, India's largest by turnover, is an exception only because of circumstances that have less to do with the inclination and all to do with the shrinking cohort of the minority community to which the founders belong. But even here, a Tata family heir succeeded another for most of the group's history until recently.

To be sure, this predisposition is not unique to India. Asia’s two global economic powerhouses, China (the “Red Princes”) and South Korea, remain largely family affairs, as do the “Tiger” south-east Asian economies. Given the growth trajectory of these countries, it is possible to argue that family-oriented societies need not be an impediment. Dynastic rule need not matter if the heir is talented. It is difficult to argue, for instance, that Mukesh Ambani should not have succeeded his father, nor that the bewildering number of Kapoor clan stars have not earned their spurs in Bollywood. 

As for politics, though the Gandhi dynast may have demonstrably fallen short of ability, there are any number of capable inheritors within the Congress Party who could take up the reins. The real question is how far “family values” impact the market for talent. It could be argued, for instance, that India's best prime ministers — P V Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee — were non-dynasts. 

Understanding the exclusionary nature of nepotism is all about following the money. Crony capitalism flourishes when financial sources remain outside formal institutional frameworks. In Bollywood and politics, mobilising large amounts of capital demands personal relationships that inevitably foster familial nexuses. In business, India’s licence raj, with its policy brakes on raising capital, created a similar situation that endures. Note the flowering of talent once institutional finance expanded in the post-reform era: infrastructure and e-commerce alone have seen the emergence of dynamic new businesspeople. 

The mainstreaming of cinema finance created space for directors such as Imtiaz Ali and Shoojit Sarkar and actors like Siddharth Malhotra and Ranvir Singh — all non-dynasts — to emerge. The risks can be seen in the scandal that recently impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye, implicated for corruption that also led to the arrest of the scion of one of South Korea’s most blue-blooded chaebol Samsung. Finally, if anything illustrates the talent-maximising values of public institutional rigour it is the United States which remains, despite everything, the world's greatest land of opportunity.