What does bringing children on to political podiums achieve?

The Gandhi family turnout for the poll campaign in Amethi-Rae Bareli-Sultanpur had an air of an US election scene. Trotting out several generations of their families for the benefit of potential voters is a leitmotif of campaigns in the US, the British being more reticent about parading anyone beyond their spouses or partners at least until victory is announced.

It is not clear what the smiling, cherubic children achieve in the US campaigns except highlighting the ‘regular family’ aspect of the politicians’ personal lives, given that those are usually the focus of fervid tabloid-probing. In India, politicians’ private lives are hardly the subject of intrusive interest, which is why most stop short of bringing the youngest members upfront.

There is, however, a bit of a dichotomy too. Even as we live with the notion of dynasty in a democracy — hence the need to tell the voters that there are heirs to spare for family seats for the next few decades —we have the ‘singles’ who say they concentrate on serving the people, but are often charged with being one-person regimes. So, poll podiums are peopled accordingly.

Political families like the Gandhis are obviously in the first camp, with the ranks of Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, Naveen Patnaik and Narendra Modi in the other — all non-Congress politicians, coincidentally or otherwise.

Not all Indian political dynasties have the advantage that the Gandhis have, with three comely generations on the stage and at least another two departed previous ones smiling from the backdrop, so perhaps they cannot be blamed for taking advantage of that fact.

Whether it is worth the considerably decreased anonymity for the two junior Gandhi-Vadras for the rest of their childhood depends on the results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, presumably.