India, June 4 -- The smooth succession of DK Shivakumar to the post of chief minister of Karnataka, one of the richest states in the country, has turned out to be smooth for the Congress party.

In West Bengal, after its rout by the saffron party, the Trinamool Congress is facing an implosion where its founder Mamata Bannerjee's widely expected plan to have her nephew succeed her has been thwarted by a rebellion of 3/4th of eighty MLAs.

Though in elected-democracies transfer of power ought to be transparent, through elections and consensus, this is a modern idea.

While evidence shows that clan-based kingdoms existed in the Indian subcontinent during the early 1st millennium BCE and decided on state matters through consultative and parti...