“Some are born great, some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” –William Shakespeare
How true this quote is! And it cannot be
truer than in the case of the children of our beloved political leaders.
Right from a very young age, they have
their career path clearly defined, with success guaranteed!
What I have found most interesting is that
such greatness is thrust upon them not only by the parents themselves, but by
the assortment of so-called uncles, aunts and other sycophants who have made fawning
into a fine art form.
It is amazing how people who come up with
some good ideas and thoughts are so happy to easily pass on the credit to
novices who
And hence we have cases where an unknown
college student is suddenly the visionary of a political sena, a
foreign-returned environmental engineer is the driving force behind his party’s
recent victories (never mind the work done by his father and other associates
for the past two decades) and becomes the youngest Chief Minister in India, a
pilot without any political experience becomes India’s Prime Minister and his
son – who has nothing to show either - is the next big hope.
To be honest, people earlier than me have
also raised this point, and they have been shut up with the usual
counter-argument, “A doctor’s son becomes a doctor, an actor’s son becomes an
actor, so what is wrong with a politician’s son becoming a politician?”
True, a lot of people follow their parent’s
professions. But they take a long time and expend every effort to reach a
level. It is not given to them on a platter as soon as they enter their chosen
field. Kumar Gaurav was the son of Jubilee Kumar and yet he fell by the
wayside, Abhishek Bachchan has still not become the hottest star, despite being
the son of The Big B, Surinder Amarnath and Rohan Gavaskar could not sustain despite
being the children of legends. Even in business, Tanya Dubash started off as a
Brand Manager in her father’s company, and took nearly 15 years to grow up the
ladder. Not to mention that she has all the right academic credentials too.
Fact of the matter is – in any other
profession, parental association can give you a head start, but it is only your
own work that will take you to success. No amount of parental support or sycophancy
will work beyond a point, if you are not good enough.
The only exception – and I challenge anyone
to correct me on this – is politics, where all you need is the right genes to
become an overnight leader.
