Sick with politicians forever projecting their progeny, people in India are per se against Bhai-Bhatijawaad. So when Assembly elections in Haryana witnessed relatives sprinkled all through the list of those who had won party tickets to contest, I wrote this piece in The Times of India, taking a line absolutely contrary to perceived popular wisdom. No wonder, the reaction was sharp. And without even understanding the argument, some offspring of seasoned politicians too called up to congratulate me for daring to write in praise of nepotism. That’s the problem with the Kaka variety of politicians.
Hail Nepotism: Bhai-Bhatija Zindabad, And We're Serious
S P Singh
Imagine a successful Corleone family without nepotism! Where would it be? Certainly not where Puzo wanted it to be.
Americans have made their peace with it -- Bush W is president for second term -- but in India, hurling a statement against any proclivity towards nepotism is still not just politically-correct, but fashionable too.
But when you challenge people to rethink their assumptions, it's literally painful and people react defensively.
Afterall, no father turns out his own son to foster a neighbour's son regardless of how much more suave, studious, handsome and hardworking he might be. One brings up one's own son, and one wills one's property to him. But a politician just has to attempt passing off some of his legacy to the offspring to get slapped with the nepotism tag. Forget that the son fights his own election.
After the Great Depression of 1929, Americans felt honchos had ruined them by dishing out partnerships to sons and sons-in-law (most daughters were still home-makers even in the US of A then). Post WWII, business went global and nepotism rules almost got institutionalised in big corporations.
When Adam Bellow, son of Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow, noticed that people don't want to acknowledge the huge influence nepotism has on their lives, and want to think of themselves as self-made men and women, he came up with his brilliant book In Praise of Nepotism, which has given the entire debate a new idiom and set many a mind thinking seriously to formulate an opinion without the pressure of being politically correct.
Politics, like business, is often as much about keeping it in the family as about being an entrepreneur. And any entrepreneur, as we all know, then tries to keep the enterprise in the family.
Many were shocked when Adam said, “We still need nepotism. It still has a role.” He said Americans haven't stamped it out, but transformed it. He has christened the current reality as “new nepotism, nepotism with deep-seated commitment to values.”
New nepotism means entry is facilitated by the connection. From there on, one fights one's own way.
Nepotism is an art. Bad nepotism fits the popular caricature of merely being preferential treatment for a relative who is grossly incompetent.
But then it can also be the great engine for civilisation. Real constituents of human society aren't individuals but families, and since in India, family has been the default mode of social organisation, it is time we raised a toast to nepotism. Anyway, there doesn't seem to be much escape from it in Haryana. So let's celebrate it. And hope it picks up some value system too, even in the land of Aya Ram Gaya Ram.
ABCDE