Friday, January 14, 2011

The Son Rise

Title is not misspelt. I precisely meant what I typed! These are the days of son rises. In politics, business, movies- sports seems to be an exception. May be because talent is a must there!

A son rise happens when a successful person, mostly who built up his own life by talent and hard work, promotes his son (or daughter)  to continue his legacy. On paper this may sound fair and fine. But, in reality?

Last week I happened to read an admission by Rahul Gandhi, scion of Nehru family, (I think attaching a Gandhi title to their family name is not a fair thing to do) touted as the next Prime Minister of India, in a meeting with students, that his family back ground has helped him in coming up in political circle. The story also mentioned that this candid admission did not go down well with audience. 

Now if an average person has to come up in politics, he should start from being an ordinary party member and then show sufficient leadership and organizational skills to slowly  make his way among the crowd to the top. It takes years of hard work and toil in different levels- from grass root to national. When the son of a political leader enters politics, he gets a top position automatically. On what basis can we ensure that this person deserves the position?

This situation makes me think of the origin of caste system. With division of labor, classes originated. Then after years, came a situation where it became impossible to a man belonging in one class to migrate to another, better class, socially or economically. Son of King remained King and son of cobbler remained cobbler. And society was plunged deep into caste system for centuries.

Are we going back to the same period...? When sons occupy the position of their rich fathers, there is no scope of outsiders to come in.

8 comments:

  1. Ah! Good one Harish...true sons of popular faces have it easy..ordinary people have to struggle to acheive the same. Very true, it is just like the caste system that was prevalent in Ancient India.

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  2. Caste system, Showering favors... and what not?

    For a person to climb up from the lower levels, it takes longer than a normal lifetime!

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  3. yes its the rule ... family heirarchy always winssssssss :)

    good post

    Bikram's

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  4. harish, valid point but all those who cried hoarse about dynasty politics are indulging in it...Mulayam, Lalu, Sharad...all have introduced their children in politics.

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  5. @Always happy: I fear this thing will slowly become a caste system in future.

    @nona: almost impossible in a legal and accepted way.

    @bikram: thanks. hope good sense prevails

    @Alka: I just gave an example of Rahul. Omar Abdullah, Lalu, Karunanidhi, Abhishek bachchan, list is endless...

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  6. As someone commented, it's not only in Politics but in almost every field, be it films, business etc.

    But I guess there still is hope for extraordinary talent , which shines with or without backing. Nevertheless it is unfair, so is life.

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  7. @purba: rightly said :)

    @chatterbox: it is unfair, but interesting. isn't it?

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