Nehru’s family… is simply a monarchy, a dynasty

So those who are in power go on remaining in power from generation to generation. Now in India, after forty years of the freedom struggle, one family has been dominating. It has become a dynasty, not a democracy. And it is impossible to remove them because in forty years they have managed everything so that they cannot be removed. They have become indispensable, and they have collected files – I have seen with my own eyes the files Indira Gandhi used to have against all the other politicians of her own party and of the opposition.

In those files are all the crimes those politicians have committed, all the bribes they have taken, all the illegal things they have done, all the misuse of power. That keeps that politician afraid that if he goes against Indira Gandhi he will be exposed. Now those files will go from one generation to another in the same family. And that is a great power.

You will be surprised: when Sanjay Gandhi, Indira’s second son, died in an accident… she was a politician first and a mother second. His airplane had fallen just a few blocks away from where Indira lived. As she heard it, she rushed to the place. There was a crowd and the police. What she asked first was not, “How is Sanjay? Is he alive or dead? How did the accident happen?” What she asked was, “He had two keys: where are those two keys?” And of those two keys one was for the chest where all those files are collected and the other was for all the black money that is used for elections – millions of dollars.

A politician can sacrifice everything, but he cannot sacrifice his power – and it is unconscious. And when she was told that those two keys had been found and were at the police station, rather than going to the hospital to see the condition of her son, she went first to the police station to get those two keys – because those two keys were far more important than a hundred Sanjay Gandhis. It doesn’t matter; he can be seen later on – and he was dead anyway.

When I heard this, that the first thing she asked about was two keys, I was shocked… but not by Sanjay Gandhi’s death. People die – that is not much of a problem – and everybody has his own style of death. Somebody dies in an accident, somebody dies in some other way; a few people die in the common, usual way, just lying in their beds. The bed is the most dangerous place; ninety-nine percent of people die there! Never sleep in your bed, because ninety-nine percent of people die there and you go to sleep in the same place every night. It is better to sleep on the floor.

Sanjay Gandhi died in an accident – that was his style of dying. That was not a problem… but this woman, who is a mother, asked about the keys! – not about the death of the son or the accident. And she rushed to the police station before those keys could be lost.

You will be surprised to know that Indira Gandhi never lived with her husband for long – and it was a love marriage. Indira Gandhi was a brahmin Hindu and her lover was a Parsee, so the marriage was very difficult for orthodox minds to accept. But Indira was the only daughter of Jawaharlal. He did not want to disturb her, and she was stubborn: if she marries she will marry this man, no other. So she married the young Parsee man – Jawaharlal allowed her to marry him.

She pulled her husband into politics also. He became a member of the parliament, but she rarely lived with him – and he was very angry. I used to know him. He was really frustrated because Indira continued to live with Jawaharlal – the power was there, and she was the only daughter.

Jawaharlal had no son, his wife had died. Indira had every possibility of succeeding him. What could her husband give to her? Finally, there was a complete separation and he started drinking too much; perhaps he died of drinking.

But Indira continued to live with her father because everything was there; the whole power of the country was centered there. And from him she got all her training in politics, all those files. When he died she had all those files, she had all that money: the party could not afford to be without her. The party had to choose her – because even the people in the party, the topmost leaders, were afraid because she had the files. And she had the money.

How else are you going to fight an election? – particularly in a country like India where you can purchase a vote by just giving two rupees. No need to do anything, just give two rupees to a person and he will vote for you. He has no idea of any ideology, he has no idea of any democracy. For two thousand years India has been a slave, so he has no idea of freedom. Two rupees seem to be more important than anything – more solid, more tangible. Democracy and freedom seem only words to hungry, starving people; two rupees seem to be more significant. So whoever has the money, whoever has the resources and the right connections for bringing in money will continue to be in power.

It is impossible for India to get rid of Nehru’s family. In name it is a democracy, but it is simply a monarchy, a dynasty. And this is the situation all over the world; it is how things work. People only see the facade; they don’t see the inside of things.

I really want to expose the whole way of politics. I am not concerned with politicians but with the way politics functions: it is ugly, it is inhuman, it is barbarous. We should live in a non-political way. Our relationships should be non-political; otherwise we don’t have relationships but only names, labels, and behind those labels the content is something else.

Osho, The Path of the Mystic, Ch 42, Q 1 (excerpt)