Every nation has its Achilles heel. If in America, everything big and shiny and new is aways seen as an improvement, then in Britain royalty and any connection to it confers an automatic superiority over lesser mortals. I’m sure such like must exist everywhere. But in India, there is a fascination with dynasties. In the absence of royalty, we have lineages.
I grew up in India. I grew up in a household that had supported the Congress party. Up until the time I could think for myself, my allegiance lay in the same place as my family’s. Later, as the party fell apart, and a certain family name became inextricably linked with it, I started to wonder why, as Indians, we placed such importance on a bloodline. Did having the same genes make you necessarily better at the same thing as your forefathers?
A recent row that erupted in the Hindi film industry, also known as Bollywood, was over nepotism. That ubiquitous practice of promoting family regardless of talent or merit. Bollywood is rife with it. Millions of rupees are ploughed into projects with star sons or star daughters. So rarely do they bring any returns. And yet, riding on the coat tails of their ancestry, these talentless no hopers survive and thrive. If an outsider happens to question this practice, they are mocked at, shunned and publicly humiliated. Then life carries on, pretty much the same as before.
Be it the Gandhis in politics, or the Kapoors and the Bachchans (amongst many others) in films, there is an automatic presumption of accession. Yet, what if nature does not provide that which nurture wishes to promote?
Cricketers’ sons do not automatically become cricketers. Writers’ children don’t always write. Artists’ progeny may have no interest in art. So, why do parents or society see it fit to shoe horn people into professions they may have no natural ability or aptitude for?
There is no denying that amongst those that DO have the interest and the inclination, not forgetting the competence and faculty, ancestry can play an important role. Here, the foundation is laid and the environment is conducive to progress and excellence. Support, mentoring and an understanding of the profession can be invaluable. Nature and nurture can work in tandem.
Sadly, more often than not, its the chaff not the wheat that gets pushed to the forefront.
Perhaps it is time for us to abandon these idiosyncrasies, and celebrate talent, intelligence, courage and competence wherever it occurs. Perhaps it is time to relegate nepotism and favouritism to the rubbish heap where they belong.
Or perhaps, it is just time to get my head examined. Utopia, after all, exists only in the minds of the mentally challenged.
