India: The loom of youth
By James Lamont in New Delhi
Published: May 10 2010 23:27 | Last updated: May 10 2010 23:27
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THE NEW GUARD
Politicians on the rise
Rahul Gandhi, 39, pictured above
Son of Rajiv Gandhi, the assassinated former prime minister, and Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress party, he is the scion of India’s most powerful political family. He has eschewed ministerial office to focus on youth politics and reviving Congress’s fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state. His constituency in the state is Amethi, a family seat held by his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister and father of Indira Gandhi, and he is strongly tipped as a future prime minister. Mr Gandhi travels constantly across the country but is regarded by his peers as a modern thinker able to take breaks from a consuming political life. Although his education was interrupted by security concerns following his father’s murder in 1991, he attended Doon School, India’s equivalent of Eton, Rollins College in Florida and Cambridge university, where he took a postgraduate degree in development economics. He also worked for three years in London at the Monitor Group, a management consultancy.
In Stanford University’s MBA class of 2001, Jyotiraditya Scindia joined almost every business group he could. The Maharaja of Gwalior, central India, lent his name to the venture capital club, high technology club, private equity club and the entrepreneur club.
Today, as minister of state for commerce and industry, the same youthful enthusiasm for business combined with experience as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley has matured into something strikingly purposeful.
His spreadsheets and daily updated “to do” lists are a refreshing break from a more familiar image of slow-moving files and socialist policies in the world’s largest democracy. Yet his business-like approach, and that of some of his young peers, is appropriate for a fast-growing large economy outstripped only by China. One way of reaching double-digit economic growth is, he says, to improve the country’s governance and delivery.
“No form stays on my desk for more than 10 minutes,” he says, BlackBerry in hand and with an eye on rolling news on a nearby plasma screen. “There is a quick turnover.”
It is not just bureaucratic process in the throes of a turnround. The 39-year-old Mr Scindia is an example of a broader change taking place in the upper echelons of the world’s largest democracy: the emergence of a generation of politicians that hopes to steer India’s global integration and rising economic power in coming decades.
More than 70 per cent of the population of 1.2bn is under the age of 35 – a statistic some claim puts the country at an advantage to ageing societies in China, Japan and Europe.
Sachin Pilot, 32, Minister for telecoms and information technology
One of the most promising new leaders and a close ally of Rahul Gandhi. Urbane and accessible, he gave up a career at General Motors to go into politics after his father, a former air force pilot and internal security minister, died in a car crash. Educated at the universities of Delhi and Pennsylvania, he is an accomplished marksman, pilots small planes and has written a book in honour of his father. Sara, his wife, is sister of Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Kashmir. His constituency is in Ajmer in Rajasthan.
“Every 25 years there is a generational shift in politics,” says Mr Scindia. “But what’s different this time around is the huge demographic dividend in India. It’s a unique opportunity.”
The most prominent of the new generation is Rahul Gandhi, 39-year-old great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. Others include the children of ministers and parliamentarians, and the daughter of a Bollywood actor turned politician. Many have been educated abroad, often in North America, have worked for multinational corporations and share a pro-market world view.
They are also more likely to grasp the benefits technology can deliver in a country where fast-growing mobile technology and television is helping deliver information and aspirations to hundreds of millions for the first time. At the same time they are careful to describe themselves as “agriculturalists” – a clear appeal to the large rural population (and electorate).
For international investors, keen to tap the country’s considerable potential but often bewildered by complex social and political structures, the emergence of this younger, well-travelled generation is welcome. Their support for opening up the economy wins plaudits from those long thwarted by barriers implemented by earlier generations.
Omar Abdullah, 40, Chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir
Ministerial goals including keeping a lid on secessionist violence in the territory disputed with Pakistan and scaling down presence of Indian army, cause of much resentment. British born and educated in India and Scotland, he comes from one of Kashmir’s leading families. His grandfather founded the Muslim Conference in 1932; his father is a government minister. Became MP for Ganderbal in Kashmir 12 years ago and has also served as minister for commerce and industry.
Executives passing through New Delhi, the capital, now like to include meetings with MPs such as Agatha Sangma, minister of state for rural development, Tathagata Satpathy of Orissa or Dushyant Singh from Rajasthan, in their schedules.
Such recognition has yet to be fully matched in politics. Few of the younger generation have yet made it to the Lok Sabha, the national parliament, where the average age of an MP is 53; the cabinet is filled with people in their 60s and 70s. However, with the left-of-centre Congress party of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expecting to be in power for the next decade, members of the business-savvy younger generation are confident of becoming central actors.
Their mix of competence and international experience is seen as desirable to their party in a country seeking to increase its share of trade, investment and global output. Mr Singh has appealed to young people in the diaspora to return to take up jobs in public service and politics. Congress, led by its party president Sonia Gandhi, has embarked on a campaign to bring young leaders into its ranks and swell party membership in opposition-held states such as Uttar Pradesh, one of the poorest; industrial Gujarat; and Punjab, the grain belt.
Jitin Prasada, 36
Minister for petroleum and natural gasThough his recent wedding to a former television presenter won bigger headlines than his ministerial work, he has held two portfolios, including minister for steel. Previously worked in banking but decided to follow his father, former vice-president of the Congress party and adviser to prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao, into politics. He was educated in India at Doon School, the Shri Ram College of Commerce at Delhi University and the Indian Management Institute. His constituency is in Uttar Pradesh.
Yet for all their promise, many of the cohort remain reluctant to view themselves as part of an emphatic shift down the age pyramid, stressing the valued mix of youth and experience in a government where the prime minister is 77, his finance minister 74.
In Indian politics, and society at large, age counts. Atal Behari Vajpayee, former prime minister and head of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party government, once pointed out that an Indian politician is born at the age of 50, becomes a teenager at 60 and a young man at 70.
Young politicians are seldom given much responsibility in government. “Among the elders who run the parties there is a dictum that they are reluctant to give cabinet jobs to young politicians ... on the grounds that experience counts and that you need to be tried and tested for the big jobs,” says Karan Thapar, a political analyst. “There is an attitude to hold the young back.”
Priya Dutt, 43
Health activist
Combines a political pedigree with the glamour of Bollywood. As a Congress party MP, she has earned a reputation for facing down local communal politics. Her father was an actor turned politician; her brother is one of the most familiar faces in Indian contemporary film. A sociology graduate of Mumbai University, she was encouraged to enter politics by Sonia Gandhi and remains loyal to the Congress party president. Represents Mumbai North in India’s financial capital.
That view is being challenged. As Sachin Pilot, a 32-year-old minister, puts it: “We are going to see a civil society accepting a leadership that doesn’t have to have an experience of 40 years.”
But the new generation still faces considerable hurdles. In the past month, one novice politician has come to grief. Shashi Tharoor, 54, a quick-witted former UN official, was elected in last year’s parliamentary polls as a first-time MP. His free-talking, irreverent style and embrace of modern technology – he likes to Twitter – earned him enemies long before he became embroiled in a cricket scandal that cost him his job.
Indian businesspeople and commentators frequently explain the behaviour of their people with the analogy of crabs in a box. If one tries to climb out, others will pull him back down. Mr Tharoor was hauled back down.
Agatha Sangma, 29
Minister for rural developmentThe youngest government minister comes from one of the best-known political families in the north-east. Her father was the speaker of parliament and her siblings are all involved in politics in her home state of Meghalaya, where they belong to the Nationalist Congress party. She trained as a lawyer in Delhi and has a diploma in environmental development, and now has responsibility for water and sanitation. She also represents the aspirations of the north-east, often viewed as a marginal part of the country. Her constituency is Tura in Meghalaya.
Nonetheless, Congress party strategists have clearly seen the potential of youth. They have sought to harness the power of India’s demographics in a way that the BJP has not.
The champion of the movement is Mr Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and a central figure in Congress’s plans to stay in power. Rather than taking executive office, he has devoted himself to bringing young people into the party, reviving its internal democracy and travelling the land with a message of renewal. The strategy has paid off. He is in part credited with Congress’s strong victory in the 2009 general election.
The BJP, among whose own youthful leaders are Mr Gandhi’s cousin Varun and Manvendra Singh, son of a former finance minister, has yet to come up with an answer.
Yet as long as Mr Gandhi, the “ yuvraj” or prince as he is known, remains out of cabinet, none of his peers will be allowed to take a big executive job. “It’s a problem to rise ahead of the heir apparent,” says Mr Thapar. “The Congress party will have been in power for 10 years and it didn’t build a future prime minister by putting him through the top portfolios.”
Varun Gandhi, 30
National secretary
of the Bharatiya
Janata party
Rahul Gandhi’s first cousin is seen as the black sheep of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Broke with family tradition to join the Hindu nationalist BJP, and stirred controversy with remarks seen as anti-Muslim during the 2009 general election campaign. Acclaimed in the BJP for strong leadership qualities and is a trump card in its fight to neutralise power of Gandhi brand. Has written on national security and holds an economics degree from London University. His constituency is in Uttar Pradesh.
The impetus for greater recognition of youth comes from Mr Gandhi’s mother, Sonia, to whom some of the party’s rising stars ascribe their ascent. The Italian-born wife of assassinated prime minister Rajiv has proved a shrewd operator in reviving her family’s party’s fortunes. She is also nostalgic for the era of her husband’s rule in the 1980s, when he drew around him thinkers, including friends from his days at India’s elite Doon School. Today, she is handpicking leaders such as Mr Pilot and Priya Dutt, a rising star in Mumbai politics.
Malvika Singh, the editor of Seminar Magazine and a Delhi-based political pundit, says Mrs Gandhi has skilfully turned around old enmities. Mr Pilot’s father served under former prime minister Narasimha Rao, who tried to reduce the influence of the Gandhi family in Congress party politics. The father of Jitin Prasada, minister of state for petroleum and natural gas, was a close adviser to Mr Rao. Ms Sangma’s father was the speaker of parliament and a leader of a splinter from the Congress party, the Nationalist Congress Party.
Jyotiraditya Scindia, 39
Minister for commerce
and industry
One of the most experienced young politicians, already in his second ministerial post. Entered politics after a career in investment banking following the death of his father – who was seen as a possible prime minister – in an air crash in 2001. Studied at Harvard and Stanford Business School. Helped set up Morgan Stanley’s India office and maintains interest in venture capital through Mumbai-based Scindia Investments. Inherited the title Maharaja of Gwalior and is MP for Guna in Madhya Pradesh, central India.
“Everyone who has attacked her, she has gone on to make peace with their children,” says Ms Singh.
The flaw in the design is India’s inability to break with dynasty. The widest criticism is that the new generation’s advancement is a result of family pedigree. Many started careers in business only, in some cases after personal tragedy, to heed a political calling similar to their parents’.
Ms Sangma, from a political family in the north-east, acknowledges the benefits of family ties. She says she has achieved a ministerial job in her 20s while someone without her pedigree could take 30 years just to get a parliamentary nomination.
The leg-up draws scorn in some quarters. “Politics is just like business and Bollywood in this country,” says Bharat Kewalramani, a Mumbai-based businessman critical of the political order. “It just runs in the family.”
However, he predicts that rising incomes will disrupt family political franchises within as little as 12 years, and that ruling families will find potent challengers for their pocket boroughs. As the middle class grows, he says, these voters will want to see people more like themselves in the Lok Sabha, and not simply younger offspring of established families.
Mr Scindia is already anticipating an era where performance will score higher than lineage. He overhauled the post office with a strategy called Project Arrow, supported by McKinsey and advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather, in his previous job. Today, his focus is cutting transaction costs to boost the competitiveness of Indian industry.
The university clubs of Stanford and the voters of Madhya Pradesh never knew they had so much in common.
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