IN THE male-dominated Indian sub-continent, daughters of famous politicians are determined to climb into the political limelight. Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Sheikh Hasina Wazed in Bangladesh, Chandrika Kumaratunga in Sri Lanka and Meira Kumar in India highlight the trend.
Benazir, Hasina and Chandrika have another thing in common: their fathers, once leaders of their respective countries, all died violently. This seems to have given the daughters an extra sense of mission.
Benazir, 33, is the daughter of the former Pakistan prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in Rawalpindi in April 1979 on the orders of the country's present military ruler, General Zia ul-Huq. Benazir was detained in Karachi last week as she stepped up her campaign to topple Zia from power.
Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's first prime minister, was massacred with several other members of his family by junior army officers in Dhaka in August 1975. Last week Hasina, 39, confirmed her decision to stand for president to try to defeat Bangladesh's military leader, General Ershad.
Chandrika's father, Solomon Bandaranaike, shot dead by a Buddhist monk in September 1959 in Colombo, was succeeded as Sri Lanka's prime minister shortly afterwards by his wife, Sirimavo, the first woman in the world to hold such a post. Last week Chandrika, 41, vice-president of the leftwing opposition People's party headed by her actor husband, Vijaya Kumaratunga, declared her intention to bring down President Jayewardene's "rightwing" government.
In Pakistan and Bangladesh, where Islamic culture places many restrictions on women, Benazir and Hasina are breaking fresh ground.
Fighting discrimination of a different sort, in India, is Meira Kumar, 41, the daughter of a former deputy prime minister, Jagjivan Ram, who was regarded for four decades as the unchallenged leader of India's low caste "untouchables" (Mahatma Gandhi preferred to call them harijans - children of God). Meira, an MP, is seeking to inherit the political mantle of her father, who died last month, aged 76, after a long illness.
But the strongest challenge she faces comes from her niece, Maydhaavi Qirti, 26. The latter thinks her claims are greater because her father, Suresh Ram, who died prematurely from a heart attack last year, was Jagjivan Ram's only son.
All five women intend to reform highly conservative societies, with a total population of 951m, dominated by men. Discernible in the political style adopted by the daughters are echoes of the past. In Benazir's case, particularly, it has become obvious that she likes to project herself as her father's daughter.
Benazir, who was educated at Oxford, as was her sophisticated father, has wisely made concessions to Muslim sensitivities and the clergy. Today, she covers her head with a shawl, wears only light make-up - perhaps only a little nail polish and a touch of eyebrow pencil-and has abandoned western clothes. She reckons marriage is, at present, out of the question.
In her public speeches, Benazir, the leader of the Pakistan People's party, resorts to populist rhetoric as her father did. But she is also slowly distancing herself from some of Bhutto's socialist policies to win support from the United States and from feudal landlords at home.
To Benazir, Bhutto will always remain a "martyr", which is how in Bangladesh, Hasina, sees her father, Mujib. "I think people love me because I am his daughter," Hasina says. She chose to get married outside Dhaka jail in 1967 because her father was being held there. She can remember police, who had come to arrest her father, first kicking to bits her doll's house.
She wants to bring her father's killers, now abroad, to justice. As the opposition Awami League leader, her vision of Bangladesh is of a country with a western style democracy and a mixed economy. "I am blazing a new trail for women here," she adds, wearing a green sari, the traditional dress of Bangladeshi housewives.
Like Hasina, Chandrika in Sri Lanka also points out that "we were fed and bred on politics". Today, she and her mother, Mrs Bandaranaike, who heads the Sri Lanka Freedom party, disagree about politics. So much so that the Sorbonne-educated Chandrika and her husband, who used to live next door to her mother, have moved with their two children to another part of Colombo.
Chandrika argues that the root cause of Tamil terrorism lies in the neglect of the minority community by the majority Sinhalese. These are brave words from a Sinhalese politician. Meanwhile, Chandrika has a powerful rival: her brother, Anura, who is vice-president of her mother's party. "I avoid talking politics with my mother," Chandrika says.
Family quarrels are also much in evidence in India. When Jagjivan Ram died, Meira wanted him cremated in Chandwa, his native village in Bihar state. Maydhaavi wanted the funeral held in Delhi. Meira won the first round. These differences reflect the battle to take over the leadership of the "untouchables" who make up 15% of India's 750m and for whom are reserved 79 out of 542 parliamentary seats.
There are shades here of the row between the late Indira Gandhi and her daughter-in-law, Menaka, over the political legacy of Sanjay Gandhi. When Sanjay died in a plane crash, Mrs Gandhi chose her elder son, Rajiv, to be her political heir. But Maydhaavi sums up the new power of the sub-continent's political daughters: "Menaka was only a daughter-in-law (traditionally a weak figure in Asian society). I am the daughter of the house."
