India and Pakistan may have charted different paths since Independence, but there is one point at which they converge — the politics of dynasty. Historian Ramachandra Guha noticed this striking, somewhat piquant similarity as he drove down the Mall in Lahore last year. He saw a large poster mixing familiar faces with those less familiar: “There was the current Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari; next to him, but looming larger in the frame, his late wife Benazir Bhutto, her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; and the dynasty’s putative heir, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.”Guha adds that there were a few others who made up “the extras”. He hazards the guess that the lesser men in the frame were local Lahore and Punjab-based politicians of the Pakistan Peoples Party. In this respect they were wholly akin to district and state-level functionaries of India’s Congress party, he says. Before an election or when their bosses come visiting, Indian Congressmen hastily install hoardings that have their faces all but masked by larger portraits of Indira, Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul Gandhi.
To read the complete news story please visit The Times of India.
India and Pakistan may have charted different paths since Independence, but there is one point at which they converge — the politics of dynasty. Historian Ramachandra Guha noticed this striking, somewhat piquant similarity as he drove down the Mall in Lahore last year. He saw a large poster mixing familiar faces with those less familiar: “There was the current Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari; next to him, but looming larger in the frame, his late wife Benazir Bhutto, her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; and the dynasty’s putative heir, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.”Guha adds that there were a few others who made up “the extras”. He hazards the guess that the lesser men in the frame were local Lahore and Punjab-based politicians of the Pakistan Peoples Party. In this respect they were wholly akin to district and state-level functionaries of India’s Congress party, he says. Before an election or when their bosses come visiting, Indian Congressmen hastily install hoardings that have their faces all but masked by larger portraits of Indira, Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul Gandhi.
To read the complete news story please visit The Times of India.