The Mughal Syndrome Indira Gandhi played the role of the Mughal emperor, and her ministers played the role of Mughal courtiers. This was how it was under Indira Gandhi. We see the same thing happening in the case of Sonia Gandhi. Servility, of course, is not a unique Congress malady, but a national malady. Not surprisingly, an effort is now being made to turn a very reluctant Vajpayee into an omniscient and omnipotent leader.
Indian democracy seems to be turning into monarchy by another name.
The similarity between our contemporary political scene and the Mughal polity is uncanny. Our politicians view the prime minister in the same way as Mughal courtiers viewed the emperor, because in most cases their power is not derived from the people, as it is in mature democracies, but from the prime minister, just as the power of the courtiers was derived from the emperor. Indira Gandhi herself derived her power from the support of the people, but most of the rest of the leaders derived their power from Indira Gandhi. The second line leadership of the Congress under Indira Gandhi did not work among the people at all, but hung around her, just as the Mughal courtiers hung around the emperor. And this dependency went all the way down the line, politicians on each rung clinging on to those on the next higher rung.