The ‘Sarkari Caste’

In recent days, the news cycles at the national level are pre-occupied with the Lokpal bill and the Anna Hazare movement. While the details of Hazare’s demands and the Lokpal bill are not very well understood by the masses, the movement itself managed to raise a level of awareness among the masses that we can do something to tackle corruption. If not for anything else, Hazare’s team managed to focus on one core issue ‘tackling corruption’ and synergize the public around this one issue. The main success behind lies in the ubiquity of the problem, and the simplicity of the messaging team, starting with its name ‘India Against Corruption’.

Yesterday, while lying around in bed, trying to sleep, I was thinking about other problems facing India. Surely, corruption is not the only problem facing us, there are a ton of other issues stunting the growth of India, culturally, politically and macro economically. Most of these are complex issues, with different groups of intellectuals promoting solutions suggested by different parties.

One thing stood out among these, something almost all the political parties are guilt of practicing, just like corruption. Something that every Indian knows all too well, but resigned oneself to it being the ‘reality of life’. It is ‘hereditary politics and nepotism’.

We all have known and seen the power of dynasty in politics, with the prime example of Nehru/Gandhi family, and depending on where we live, regional dynasties of the region. When this comes up for discussion among social circles or in social media, more often than not you see someone pointing out that this is not a problem at all. The usual lines go like these i) these guys still need to get elected even if they are sons and daughters of politicians, and ii) when children of movie stars become movie stars and children of doctors become doctors, yada yada yada, why can’t children of politicians become politicians themselves? iii) I don’t mind if someone is a son of politician as long as he does good work.

For the first argument ‘they still need to get elected by the people’ has no legs, for the very simple fact that elections for an MLA or an MP are still decided mostly based on the party affiliation of the candidate, which is true in almost every democracy, and the party tickets are now currently given to kith and kin of previous politicians without any regard to their ability. When a Scindia/Pilot/Owaisi vacate their seat or die, it is almost certain that the party ticket goes to another Scindia/Pilot/Owaisi if they so desire.

The second argument ‘if it is ok in other professions, why not in politics’ is a classic case of wordplay and out of context arguments. It is never ok for nepotism or hereditary succession in any field where the entrants do not have to prove themselves, so the question of ‘if it is ok other fields’ shouldn’t arise. For a doctor’s son to become a successful doctor, they need to pass a barrage of tests and college, and then ultimately they need to be good in their profession to attract patients. Being a doctor’s child still helps but the bar is high actually succeed. When it comes to acting, the bar gets to be pretty low, where an actor’s son gets breaks that others won’t and gets multiple chances of failure before they finally succeed. The bar gets a lot lower, but we still have a choice whether or not to see their movies and they still need to perform to get ahead with new movies. We have seen star sons rise up and fall, some vanish from the scenes altogether if they don’t have the stuff. Lastly, people in none of the other fields decide what goes in our country more than the elected members of parliament, and that also happens to be one field where we can raise awareness and do something about it.

I will finish the rest of the article in some time, but read this for some interesting stats about the topic.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?269931