What is the formula for political success? There could be as many answers to this question as there are researchers and analysts. The question easier to answer in the South Asian context is: what is the formula for political succession? The answer: family, call it dynasty, if you will. It is who you are — not in the individual sense but in the tribal sense — and not what you are — in terms of academic qualification, talent and ability for politics, competence and track record of management and social service etcetera.

If your father is Jawaharlal Nehru, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, or your spouse Rajiv Gandhi or Benazir Bhutto, you’ve got what it takes to reach the top of politics in your respective South Asian country.

Really? Well, almost. After all, most of the illustrious fathers and spouses above had many descendents and relatives other than those who eventually rose to political eminence. For every Asif Zaradri there is a Ghinwa Bhutto, for every Sonia Gandhi there is a Maneka Gandhi and for every Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Rahul Gandhi there are other siblings and cousins who share the family tree with them yet fail to make their presence felt on the political scene. So, who has it in them to make it in politics and who does not?

It is essentially this question that Rahul, the book, tries to explore but never really answers satisfactorily. The first authoritative biography of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi’s first born, by its own claim, the book delves into the personal, familial and political history of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to describe how Rahul has never been far away from India’s national scene even when he was trying to move away from the family’s familiar routine of sons and daughters taking over where mothers and fathers leave in politics and power. He has grown up seeing national politics virtually unfolding in his backyard. Since his childhood, he has experienced traumatic assassinations (of his grandmother Indira in 1984 and his father Rajiv in 1991), palace intrigues, electoral victories and defeats — all first-hand. Even while at school or at home, he has been under intense media glare and a large part of the Indian public always expected him to follow in the political footsteps of his father, grandmother and great grandfather even when he was studying or running his private business.

Yet, Rahul has taken his time joining politics and he is taking even more time being ready to come to power. Is his reluctance an indication that he is not sure whether he has the political quotient he is supposed to have? If he thinks that he has it, how long will he take to put it into practice by taking up a cabinet portfolio in the current government or by declaring that he will be the future prime minister of India if and when Congress party returns to power? Is he seen as the rightful heir to the throne by the Congress leadership and the supporters of the family and the party? Is he saying and doing the right kind of things to solidify his place at the top of Congress and the country?

The two authors — Jatin Gandhi and Veenu Sandhu — both political journalists with about 15 years of writing and reporting behind them, raise these questions. But they leave the readers to draw their own conclusions. The events, anecdotes, speeches, interviews and news reports they bring to bear upon their narrative never seem to answer any of these questions in the definitive. Why has Rahul declined offers to join the cabinet while at the same time continuing to campaign vigorously, both for national and state assembly elections, for close to a decade now? At the end of the book we don’t know the answer to that any better.

However, the book does seem to suggest that Rahul’s political procrastinations are not unique. His father, mother and sister had displayed similar reluctance to be at the centre of the politics of Congress and India after what seems like a series of unfortunate accidents thrusting greatness upon them. The authors have also devoted a lot of space to comparing the political and popular appeal of Rahul with that of his sister Priyanka, without saying who among the two is best suited to head the dynasty. They, in fact, show the siblings as complementing each other rather than competing.

The authors, however, do well to bring out contradictions in Rahul’s politics. He has, for instance, called dynastic politics a problem and himself a “symptom of this problem” before vowing that “I want to change it”. But he has intervened several times to force changes in the policies of his party and the government simply on the basis of who he is. He has also brandished his upper caste Brahmin credentials when questions were raised within the Congress after its defeat in 2012 Uttar Pradesh state assembly election that Brahimins there were unhappy with the party. But he has also led public demonstrations against caste-based discrimination.

Rahul, the book, also charts the political evolution of Rahul, the politician. It describes how, between two party summits in 2000s, he set a new agenda for Congress which focused on the less shining parts of India — on the aam admi, or the man on India’s streets. At the same time, he is shown to have declared that Congress was losing political support not because communal and caste-based parties were gaining but rather because it was failing to address the concerns of the aam admi, regardless of his creed and caste. He is also seen as taking the unconventional route of providing management and leadership training to a younger generation of politicians and party leaders and forcing party cadres into working with ordinary Indians in the most inaccessible and backward parts of India.

But all these changes have gone hand in hand with rising political corruption under the watch of Congress party’s term in power while social, economic, geographical and demographic divisions have sharpened due to the Congress government’s growth- only economic agenda to the disadvantage of aam admi. The party has also brazenly used religion and caste cards wherever they were seen to help in garnering votes.

The book purports to make sense of all these complexities by “revealing the real man beneath the hype” through an analysis of “ideas and influences that propel” Rahul and by looking at his advisors. But what we get is hardly that. We don’t end up knowing Rahul better than we already did — the book does not add any biographical detail that is not already in the public sphere; his ideas remain in a flux and influences on him keep changing; instead of his advisors we get to know about his boxing coach and his Blackberry wielding crack team of foreign-educated loyal lieutenants, almost all with dynastic roots. It would have helped the readers’ understanding of the subject if the analytical part of the book was taken better care of.

The reviewer is the editor of the monthly Herald

Rahul (Biography) By Jatin Gandhi and Veenu Sandhu Penguin India, New Delhi ISBN 9780670084807 288pp. Indian Rs499