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The debate swirling around the Delimitation Bill 2026 – which sought to expand the Lok Sabha from 543 to 850 seats and correspondingly balloon state assemblies – has been framed almost entirely as a contest between north and south India. Southern states, which successfully controlled their populations over decades, fear being punished for their discipline by losing proportional representation to the more populous Hindi heartland. This is a legitimate grievance, and the constitutional amendment bill was, in fact, voted down on April 17, 2026 – a rare parliamentary defeat for the ruling establishment.

But in the frantic arithmetic of seats, share percentages, and regional pride, a far more fundamental question has been studiously ignored: Does India need more politicians at all?

The answer, examined honestly, is an emphatic no. And the reason lies in understanding the true nature of the Indian political class – what it is, how it came to be, what purpose it actually serves, and who ultimately pays for it. The delimitation project, whatever its fate, holds up a mirror to one of the deepest structural contradictions of post-independence India: not the tension between Hindus and Muslims, not between upper castes and lower castes, not even between the north and the south – but between the people and the political class that claims to represent them while systematically feeding off them.

The birth of a new elite

When India gained independence in 1947, the political class carried a certain moral weight. Freedom fighters had, in many cases, sacrificed careers, comfort, and freedom itself for the nation. The first parliament, convened in 1952 with 489 members, contained lawyers, educators, social reformers, and genuine mass leaders – men and women who had earned their standing through struggle and sacrifice.

That world vanished within a generation.

What replaced it was something qualitatively different: a professional political class for whom electoral politics was not a form of public service but a business model – and among the most lucrative available. Unlike medicine, law, engineering, or commerce, entry into this profession requires no certified skill, no demonstrated expertise, no formal qualification. What it requires, and what it systematically rewards, is a specific constellation of traits: the capacity for shameless self-promotion, talent for sycophancy toward those above, the ability to intimidate or cajole those below, and, most importantly, a complete detachment from the moral inhibitions that constrain ordinary human behaviour.

India did not accidentally produce this class. It produced it structurally. The combination of a first-past-the-post electoral system, a caste-fragmented electorate susceptible to identity mobilisation, a weak rule of law that permits criminality to go unpunished, and the sheer scale of state patronage available to those in power – all of this created the precise ecological niche in which the modern Indian politician thrives. Seventy-five years after independence, this class has not only survived but multiplied, entrenched, and refined its methods.

The anatomy of parasitism

To understand the Indian political class, one must move beyond theory to function. In theory, politicians represent citizens, legislate, and hold the executive accountable. In practice, they operate as intermediaries – positioned between citizens and the state, and between capital and public authority – extracting rent in both directions.

At the bottom, the politician is a gatekeeper. Access to ration cards, licences, welfare schemes, or basic services is rarely direct; it is mediated through political brokers. This opacity is not incidental but structural – simplification would eliminate the intermediary. Digital reforms have dented this system at the margins, but its core logic remains intact.

At the top, politicians are indispensable to capital.........

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