asianaffairs

Rahul Gandhi and Gamal Mubarak, both heirs to their country's most prominent political families, are on the threshold of stepping into the highest elective office and may well want to forge a close alliance between their two countries, just as it was in the good old non-aligned days.

By Shyam Bhatia

POST-COLONIAL MODERNISERS: Jawaharlal Nehru and Abdel Nasser established close political and military ties, akin to an alliance

For the best part of two decades India and Egypt had the closest of bilateral relations.

Both nations had emerged from British-ruled colonial times, each was the heir to an ancient river-based civilisation and their respective leaders were determined to do what it took to modernise their respective countries.

Under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru and Gamal Abdel Nasser, New Delhi and Cairo forged close political and military ties that were akin to an alliance. The two leaders, supported by presidents Tito of Yugoslavia and Soekarno of Indonesia, were also at the heart of an international association that evolved into the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Nehru and Nasser are long dead, but their respective countries are discovering a cultural affinity for family-based dynastic politics that was not always apparent in the early days after independence from British rule.

True, Egypt was ruled by a hereditary monarch, King Farouk, until he was toppled by Nasser in a military coup in 1952. But Nasser himself showed no

interest in the political promotion of any of his five children, Hoda, Mona, Khaled, Abdel Hamid and Abdel Hakim. The same was true of Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat. His children, Gamal, Lobna, Noha and Jehan also steered clear of politics, although a nephew, Talat, was until recently a member of the Egyptian parliament.

The same aversion to politics is not discernible in Gamal Mubarak, the 46 year old younger son of Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak, who is an investment banker by profession and a graduate of the American University in Cairo.
Although father and son have each denied any secret plan for a family-based political succession, Gamal has been general secretary since 2002 of the ruling National Democratic Party's Policy Committee. In Egypt it is an open secret that any cabinet reshuffle has Gamal's stamp on it. In this respect Gamal is most often compared to Bashar-al Assad in neighbouring Syria who succeeded his father Hafez-al-Assad as Syrian President in 2000.

In the days and weeks to come Gamal is expected to embrace a higher political and public profile so that the Egyptian public gets used to the prospect of his taking over the presidency from his 81 year old father in 2011. Family apologists say the bright side of this expected dynastic succession means Egypt will be ruled by a civilian president for the first time in more than 50 years. Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak senior have all emerged from within the ranks of the Egyptian armed forces.

Gamal's supporters say there is nothing unusual about a son succeeding his father in national politics. Bashar Assad is the obvious and nearest precedent setter. But Mubarak family sympathisers also point to the United States where they say the Kennedy and Bush families have each played a prominent role in presidential politics.

When it comes to family succession, however, Egyptians are most fond of pointing eastwards to India, their old ally, where it is almost a cultural 'de rigueur' for a child to embrace his/her parent's political throne.

Nehru, a democrat to his roots, appointed his sister to prestigious government jobs, (she was India's ambassador in Moscow, Washington and London and governor of the state of Maharashtra), but he never spoke out in favour of dynastic succession. However Nehru weakened when it came to his daughter's role in public life. By allowing Indira Gandhi to become president of the ruling Congress Party in 1959, Nehru ensured she became a front runner to succeed him. Although Nehru's immediate successor was Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira became prime minister in 1966 and ruled India for much of the following 18 years until she was assassinated in 1984.

Her successor was her son, Rajiv, who was prime minister from 1984 until he was defeated at the polls in 1989. Following his assassination in 1991, it is Rajiv's Italian-born widow, Sonia, who has increasingly dominated national politics. Although India's current prime minister is the respected international economist, Dr Manmohan Singh, Sonia is seen by many as the key political player behind the scene.

Sonia in turn has groomed her 39 year old son, Rahul, to prepare for the country's highest elective office. Just like Gamal Mubarak, Rahul too has the prestigious title of general secretary in his country's ruling party and, like Gamal, he also has experience of business management.

General elections are not due in India until 2014 by which time the elderly Dr Singh (currently 77 years old) will be more than ready to make way for a younger man. Enter Rahul, by then an experienced 44 year old politician and a shoo-in for high political office. Like Gamal Mubarak, many Indians believe it is now only a matter of when rather than whether. And who knows what will happen as and when the two Crown Princes take over the reins of power in New Delhi and Cairo. Rahul and Gamal may then find through their shared political culture that India and Egypt have a common heritage that was briefly obscured, but runs deep and is now waiting to be re-discovered.

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