Dynasty Vs Merit: Why Both Threaten Indian Democracy

On October 31, 2025, erudite scholar and seasoned insider of international diplomacy and Indian politics, Shashi Tharoor, wrote an opinion piece titled “Indian Politics Are a Family Business” for Project Syndicate.

Tharoor’s diagnosis is spot on. There is absolutely no doubt that dynastic politics undermines democracy, weakening democratic governance and its ability to deliver on the welfare promises of electoral politics. It reduces democracy’s transformative power of politics to a mere reproduction of power, creating an illusion of democracy where bloodlines determine power, politics, and privilege. This dynamic hinders the deepening of democracy, the decentralisation of power, and the empowerment of egalitarian and secular citizenship in a constitutional democracy like India.

The idea of birthrights in politics and lineages of political dynasties erode the very foundation of democracy and creates electoral conditions conducive to autocratic politics led by families at all levels — from the grassroots to the national stage. 

Tharoor argues for an alternative political system in India — one that can replace dynastic politics with meritocracy. He contends that this transformation “requires fundamental reforms, from imposing legally mandated term limits to ensuring meaningful internal party elections, along with a concerted effort to educate and empower the electorate to choose leaders based on merit”.

What is “merit” or “meritocracy” in democratic politics?

What, then, are the markers of merit?

Are they skills, qualifications, ideology, class, caste, race, gender, sexuality, or property ownership? 

Tharoor neither defines the term nor expands on it to engage with its implications. He is neither the first nor the last to argue for meritocratic politics. There is a body burgeoning of literature advocates for meritocracy in politics, largely as a response to the failures of the market-driven electoral system in capitalist democracies. This system has reproduced and institutionalised dynastic politics rooted in family, class, caste, gender, educational, and other forms of privilege, thereby reinforcing elitist politics and undermining democracy. Like dynastic politics, it has also elevated a class of technocratic professionals, promoting a culture of consultancy in politics — often detached from the lived realities, needs, desires and aspirations of the people.

The individualistic character or markers of merit can potentially give rise to individual-centered meritocratic politics and a culture of political career or careerism in politics, which is concomitant with and reinforces both dynastic politics and the autocratic tendencies of capitalism within the electoral system. From the Qin and Han dynasties in China to the Rashidun Caliphate in Arab world and the Ashanti Kingdom in Africa, several regimes were based on a meritocratic system of governance to maintain their hegemonic power and absolute control over their sprawling undemocratic and feudal empires.

Meritocracy was foundational to Greek aristocracies and modern European colonial capitalists. The British colonial rule in India was based on a propertied higher caste led feudal meritocratic system, maintained and reinforced by the glorification of civil servants. However, the appeal to meritocracy continues to echo in the corridors of power, seeking legitimacy in the very language of merit, even as the meaning of “merit” and “meritocracy” in a democratic context remains deeply contested as the elitist idea of meritocracy rejects the democratic ideals of many in politics.

The ideals and projects of meritocracy in politics derive their philosophical roots from Plato, who divided citizens and society into classes: philosopher-kings (rulers), guardians (soldiers), and producers (artisans and farmers), based on their natural abilities.

Similarly, Aristotle, in The Politics (Book Three, Part Twelve), also argues for a meritocratic system based on virtues and skills.

Aristotle wrote: “When a number of flute players are equal in their art, there is no reason why those of them who are better born should have better flutes given to them; for they will not play any better on the flute, and the superior instrument should be reserved for him who is the superior artist.… If there were a superior flute-player who was far inferior in birth and beauty, although either of these may be a greater good than the art of flute-playing, and may excel flute-playing in a greater ratio than he excels the others in his art, still he ought to have the best flutes given to him, unless the advantages of wealth and birth contribute to excellence in flute-playing, which they do not.”

In the Indian context, the caste system mirrors these ideals. Therefore, meritocracy in politics can become a celebration of caste hierarchies and the feudal, reactionary Brahminical order, echoing the ethos of dynasty politics that currently underpins Indian politics — a system that Tharoor seeks to replace with an aristocracy of merit and talent. Historically, cheerleaders of meritocratic politics often fail to acknowledge that it can accelerate existing inequalities, creating a status-based social stratification that consolidates elitism and concentrates power in politics rather than dismantling it.

From Confucianism and Islam to Hinduism and Buddhism, religious ideals often reward merit in the form of complete devotion to prescribed virtues — a mechanism that disciplines the masses and encourages obedience to authority. This is, in effect, the rule of a few over many, celebrated as “success” in capitalist democracies that promote meritocracy in politics as a form of competition where anyone can, in theory, compete and win.

In reality, however, market-driven electoral systems are prohibitively expensive, making political participation accessible primarily to those with significant financial resources. So, the electoral arena is dominated by the wealthy, and such a system undermines democracy.

Nonetheless, right-wing, reactionary, and liberal philosophers from John Stuart Mill to Daniel Bell and many other politicians like Tharoor have consistently argued for meritocratic systems, which individualise social, political, and economic mobility while universalising governance structures to manage the masses through the circulation of elites.

Merit in the form of education, qualifications, degrees, and professional experience does not necessarily produce transformative politics. For example, countries like Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States, Ghana, and Slovenia have highly educated politicians, many holding PhDs or postgraduate degrees, yet these countries are often dominated by oligarchs, and reactionary politics thrives successfully.

The countries such as Italy, India, Tanzania, Norway, Britain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Australia, Namibia, and Pakistan have a high share of politicians with only undergraduate or secondary education, and politics in these countries is neither particularly transformative nor progressive.

Empirically, there is no direct link between meritorious educational qualifications and effective legislation that deepens democracy, safeguards citizens’ rights, or promotes prosperity.

Therefore, educational qualification alone cannot serve as a reliable marker of meritocratic politics.

Merit is not always synonymous with intelligence, education, qualifications, degrees, or effort; it often reflects the reproduction of privileges based on caste, class, gender, and racial position, rewarding or marginalising individuals and groups according to their networks of power.

A meritocratic system built on such networks preserves, protects, and promotes existing power structures, undermining the distributive logic of democracy. So, meritocratic politics in a democracy does not necessarily translate into the reforms that Dr. Tharoor envisions.

Rising inequality under capitalist democracies reveals that the political ideology of meritocracy is often an illusion of efficient welfare delivery and effective governance. The democratic framework itself can restrict social, political, and economic mobility, reproducing inequalities through the inheritance of wealth and power via dynasties.

Meritocratic politics, therefore, offers no inherent virtues or values; it is often merely a consolidation of elite power. In short, “right diagnosis, wrong prescription” aptly characterises Tharoor’s article.

It is time to redefine meritocracy in politics as a political culture and ideology rooted in commitment to working people, individual sacrifices for the greater common good, and leadership based on collective values rather than personal accumulation of wealth and power. Such a system of political meritocracy can only be realized through continuous revolutionary mobilisation of the working people, aimed at protecting and promoting collective prosperity in accordance with the will and interests of the working people.

Mass movements of working people are the only force capable of producing a political system grounded in political meritocracy, committed to the collective foundations of knowledge, skills, wealth, democracy and a decentralised governance structure where people truly exercise power over their own lives. In such a system, there is no space for reactionary or authoritarian rule, whether dictated by capitalist markets or their consultants in politics, whether in dynastic or so-called meritocratic forms.

(This article is the author's rejoinder to Dr Shashi Tharoor’s article “Indian Politics Are a Family Business”, published in Project Syndicate on October 31, 2025.)

Views and opinions expressed here are the author's own.