Mulayam-Akhilesh, Tata-Mistry, Et Al: Bungling Succession Is A Key Indian Failing

The ongoing power struggle in the Samajwadi Party (SP) between father Mulayam Singh and son Akhilesh Yadav, the jockeying for a post-Jayalalithaa inheritance in Tamil Nadu politics, and the exit of Cyrus Mistry from the chairmanship at Tata Sons after a palace coup are all pointers to the fact that Indians have not yet found out a sensible way to manage succession. Whether it is in politics or business or social organisations, we simply do not have a simple and transparent way to pass on power to the deserving, though there are a few exceptions to this rule.

This is a pity, and it underlines the Indian inability to build long-term institutions that will outlast any iconic individual or charismatic figure. How you manage succession has the biggest impact on the longevity of an institution.

Nature has a simple way to decide succession: survival of the strongest or fittest. This ensures that only the best get to rule, or pass on their genes down the generations.

But humans no longer accept nature’s rule, for it is a recipe for uncertainty and chaos.

But nature’s rule always prevails in the end. Parricide, fratricide and father-son-brother conflicts may have gone out of fashion with the Mughals, but ultimately it is the strongest contender who survives.

And so it will be with the Mulayam-Akhilesh tussle. Given age on his side, even if Akhilesh loses the next assembly election, it is he who will take over the Samajwadi Party.

The reason why we even have these tamashas is that the old do not give way easily to the young when their time is up. Despite our notions of sanyas and an underlying philosophy of not seeking temporal power, Indians deeply crave power. But are not willing to acknowledge this in a forthright manner.

In Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi refuses to let go even though he is in his nineties. Having many contenders for succession – two sons and a daughter too – has helped him reign long past his sell-by date.

The main reason why Mulayam Singh allowed Akhilesh to become Chief Minister was his own lust for power: he thought he was in with a chance to becoming Prime Minister in case of a hung parliament after May 2014; but Mulayam Singh also had to acknowledge that the 2012 SP victory was largely Akhilesh’s doing. He had to acknowledge strength when he saw it. He was just hoping that ever greater power was his for the asking in 2014.

If the Congress party is going to seed right now, it is because Sonia Gandhi has not paid heed to strength while trying to push Rahul Gandhi as the next in line for party leadership. Ability would mark his sister Priyanka as the better choice for party leadership, but that hasn’t happened.

Strong leaders tend to support weak successors since it ensures their own longevity in power. This may be why Sonia Gandhi may have preferred Rahul, for it ensures her own power remains intact.

The same concentration of power also pervades single-individual parties, like Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool in West Bengal and Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu. Strong leaders often refuse to appoint clear successors because they fear their own powers will reduce if a second-in-command is appointed. It is natural for an anointed heir to attract his own loyalties which can lead to the creation of a rival power base, and strong leaders do not like this.

MGR did not anoint Jaya as his heir despite inducting her into the party. She had to establish her own identity in politics after his death by proving it at the hustings. And now she is reluctant to appoint an heir, for fear the party faithful will gravitate towards him (or her). Mayawati has claimed that she has already appointed an heir, but is reluctant to make the name known for fear of loss of her own power.

This is true as much in the religious or cultural spheres, where top Gurus and Matas fail to clearly anoint successors when they are at their peaks. Sri Sathya Sai Baba did not do so, and even Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev do not seem to have clearly identified successors.

The RSS, interestingly, has a better system, with sarsanghchalaks having a predetermined tenure, and successors indicated ahead of time. This is why the RSS has survived as an institution for more than a century, but one cannot say the same about other religio-cultural organisations.

In business, Dhirubhai Ambani was seen as a far-sighted man, but he failed to write a will to divide his companies between his sons Mukesh and Anil. It led to a fight, and once again, strength asserted itself, with Mukesh emerging stronger even after a division of assets. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, scores of Indian business families fought bitter battles for a share of their patrimonies, from the Piramals to the Mafatlals to the Bangurs. The few who managed to divide their businesses without much acrimony include the Goenkas. Even at Infosys, the founders ran a round-robin system of leadership, which led to weakness at the top a few years ago, leading to weak performance for prolonged quarters. Succession problems, it seems, are not restricted only to family-run firms.

Some of the older Hindu institutions, like the maths established by Adi Shankara, have survived and prospered for hundreds of years, suggesting that institution-building is not necessarily an eternal Indian failing. But the successes are few and far between.

This is the lesson all Indians need to learn for success: the need to build institutions that outlive the individual.