The first is the lyrics of 1989 Bollywood chartbuster Ram Lakhan. Directed by Subhash Ghai, the Mukta Arts production was not only a box office hit but also gobbled almost all the awards in the popular category excepting for the lyrics written by Anand Bakshi. Critics repeatedly panned songs penned by Bakshi as random compositions without much meaning. However, it also remains a fact that till he lived, Bakshi’s random compositions continued to capture popular imagination.
The inspirational song for today’s notebook goes like this, “mere do anmol rattan, ek hai Ram toh ek Lakhan, Ram Lakhan...” The song captures a mother’s affection for his two sons in very simple words. The song became very popular because it expressed the strong family bonds that exist in the Indian society and sons in every family are no less than the legendary Princes of Ayodhya — Ram and Lakshman.
The second inspiration is the inane diarrhoea of words which is lapped up by television audience as Sidhuism. On Monday last, the BJP MP from Amritsar Navjot Singh Sidhu, after casting vote, addressed the media claiming that in democracy the fortunes of a politician is not decided by the family in which he or she is born, but by votes which come out of the ballot box in his or her favour.
On the face of it, Sidhu’s attack on parivarwaad (loosely and inappropriately translated as nepotism) sounded adequate and politically correct. However, as Sidhu blurted out, he did not realise that he had Navjot Kaur, the local BJP candidate standing besides him. Navjot Kaur would have never found her name on the party’s list of
candidates if her husband Navjot Singh Sidhu did not represent the Amritsar seat in Parliament.
The 2012 Assembly polls in five States in more than certain terms have asserted that the politics of Ram, Lakhan is here to stay. Pariwarvad in 21st century is anachronism. Take a magnifying glass and look around, there isn’t a single political party where the next generation has not taken over. And there is nothing wrong about it. Communists tried to avoid it and are paying a heavy price for it.
Look at all the parties and one would find that political scions were rightly in the driver’s seat of their respective organisations. Today Akhilesh Yadav commands much more command and respect in the Samajwadi Party than his uncles Shivpal Yadav or Ramgopal Yadav ever did.
Akhilesh Yadav has worked overtime to metamorphose Samajwadi Party into an urbane and progressive outfit from a caste-based and fighting for caste-quota unit. Despite repeated attempts by the Congress to draw a wedge into Mulayam Singh Yadav’s traditional vote bank of Ahirs and Muslims, his son has refused to get into the wrangle. In Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, with the easing out of Anuradha Chowdhary, the reins of the party are firmly in the hands of Jayant Chowdhary.
In Punjab, Sukhbir Singh Badal hopes that a positive result in the favour of Akali Dal would complete the generation change in party, which he has steered away from the old Panthic agenda towards more modern issues of development and education. This has been achieved without the party needing to pass a new motion of the same magnitude as the Anandpur Sahib resolution to counter the latter’s influence.
In Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray is once again making attempt to get the public approbation through the local municipal polls for having taken over the mantle of Shiv Sena from his father Bala Saheb. His major opponents, whether in the Congress or in the NCP, are all members of some dynasty or the other.
In the Congress, forget about the first family, it is otherwise also full of the scions of other lesser dynasties. The Congress brass has sufficient number of leaders with political pedigree and if there is one without it, he or she has ensured that his next generation prepares to take over the family mantle.
The Doomsday Sayers may claim that it’s end of road for the common man in politics as the dynasties are all taking over. But that’s not true. There has always been enough space in all the political outfits for a political worker. While it’s true that a worker has to struggle to move upwards, it’s also equally true that the scions of the political families have to wage a daily battle to retain their influence.
There are ample examples of the children of towering political leaders losing out to political workers in the matters of succession. The Shukla family of MP-Chhattisgarh has gone into complete decline. Closer to the Capital, there is the example of Union Minister HKL Bhagat’s son, who could never be established politically and has more or less quit politics. In Uttar Pradesh, the once powerful family of Kamalapati Tripathi stands completely withered. In fact, it’s a party worker like Rajesh Mishra who now wields in party flag in the Tripathi family fiefdom of Varanasi.
The lesson is that we are a nation which admires the Princes of Ayodhya for strong filial ties and its approbation is often found in the mandate which the people give to the political families. However, as in the case of King of Ayodhya, exacting standards are demanded from the scions, who have to face constant agnipariksha.
