India, Sept. 14 -- In a majority of cases, if you are very wealthy or very powerful, it is likely that you will leave behind a legacy of family discord, and our history is replete with such examples. For instance, in the Mughal dynasty, emperor Jahangir's death led to a war of succession between his sons in which Shahjahan triumphed. When he died, this war was replicated on a far more brutal scale among his male heirs. Shahjahan, it is believed, wanted his eldest son, the erudite and amiable Dara Shikoh to succeed him, but it was the more bigoted and ruthless Aurangzeb who won. He imprisoned Shahjahan in Agra Fort, and publicly beheaded Dara.

Post 1947, succession tensions have rippled across India's most prominent political parivar, the...