From Kanhaiya Kumar to Arvind Kejriwal, Indian politics offers a warning about movements that struggle to grow beyond one dominant face. Watching Abhijeet Dipke rise to prominence recently made me think of Kanhaiya Kumar. Not necessarily because of their politics, but because of a pattern. Kanhaiya did not emerge alone. During the JNU agitation of 2016, Umar Khalid, Shehla Rashid and Anirban Bhattacharya were also prominent voices. Yet one person became the most recognisable electoral political face of that moment. Dipke, too, is part of a movement with other articulate people around him. Yet increasingly, one name travels. That raises three questions for any movement or political party hoping to become a serious electoral alternative. Can the party nurture more than one face? Can those faces make big ideas understandable? Can one of them eventually take over? Similar Patterns Irom Sharmila moved from extraordinary moral authority as an activist into electoral politics, but that authority did not translate into votes. Jaya Prakash Narayan built Lok Satta around governance reform and institutional change, but strong ideas did not translate into large-scale electoral strength. Akhil Gogoi moved from grassroots activism into Raijor Dal and built an electoral presence, but the organisation remains strongly identified with him. Chandrashekhar Azad moved from the Bhim Army to the Azad Samaj Party and then into Parliament. His next test is whether the organisation can grow beyond his own appeal. Then, there is Arvind Kejriwal. India Against Corruption had several formidable names around it: Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Kumar Vishwas and others. Yet over time, AAP became overwhelmingly identified with Kejriwal. Politics naturally seeks a protagonist. Charisma, timing and communication matter immensely, as does media attention. The problem arises when the organisation stops looking beyond that face. What happens to the second, third and fourth people? Are they given responsibility? Are they allowed to build their own constituencies? Are they exposed to the public often enough to become independently recognisable? Or does the success of one leader quietly become the ceiling for everyone else? Perhaps, it is far too early to ask this question of Dipke. Perhaps it is too early to ask whether he has a succession plan. We do not yet know clearly whether he even sees his movement becoming a conventional political party, or what shape he ultimately wants it to take. But it is not too early to ask what happens to the talent around him. Succession is a late-stage question. Talent visibility is an early-stage one. A movement reveals something about its future long before it contests an election: through whom it allows to speak, whom it trusts with responsibility, and whether others around the founder are allowed to build their own identities. Succession Woes This is hardly limited to politics. Indian organisations have struggled with the same issue for years. Family-run businesses have a clear succession path. Whether the next generation is always the best choice is another matter, but the direction is obvious. Outside family businesses, the problem is often more glaring. Companies speak endlessly about leadership pipelines, high-potential talent and succession planning. Yet when a long-serving chief executive or founder leaves, boards often find that nobody inside is ready. Was there really no talent, or did the organisation fail to recognise, retain, stretch and give it enough room to grow? That question matters even more today because what we once recognised as talent may no longer be enough. The skills that made someone successful ten years ago may not be the skills needed for the next decade. Politics faces the same problem. Recognising talent is only the beginning. The second challenge is whether that talent can communicate. Yogendra Yadav is a useful example. Few would question his understanding of Indian politics, elections, rural India, or public policy. He brings nuance to issues that deserve it. But nuance has a difficult relationship with electoral politics. A voter should not need a seminar to understand what you are proposing. That does not mean dumbing down ideas. India will need serious thinking on artificial intelligence, jobs, education, agriculture, climate, cities and demographic change. Political leaders will need intellectual depth. But depth must be translated. The real skill is making something simple without making it simplistic. A leader must understand the ten-year problem and explain its relevance in ten seconds. Politics needs intellectual depth in the engine room and clarity on the dashboard. Perhaps this is why one person sometimes races ahead of equally intelligent colleagues. The political star may not be the person with the most sophisticated argument. It may be the person who can make that argument understandable beyond the room. Then comes the third question: can one of them eventually take over? Congress has spent decades responding to criticism that leadership succession repeatedly returns to one family. The BJP faces a very different situation. After more than a decade of Narendra Modi dominating national politics, discussion of who will follow him remains largely speculative. When does a party start preparing for what comes next? Certainly not when the chair becomes vacant. Future leaders need years of preparation before the public. They need to govern, campaign, debate, explain difficult ideas, face criticism, make mistakes, lose occasionally and recover. More importantly, several people need that opportunity. Succession planning should not mean identifying a single successor in advance. It should mean ensuring there are choices. Which brings me back to Dipke. Perhaps the interesting question is not whether he becomes another Kanhaiya Kumar, another Kejriwal, or disappears from public memory. The real test of a political organisation is not whether it discovers a star. It is whether it knows what to do with all the talent standing around the star. (The writer is a learning and development professional. Views personal.)
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