Sometimes I wonder what we would do if India – as a political entity – had a Facebook account and had to update her relationship status with her citizens. I suspect she would say, ‘It’s Complicated’.
It is, indeed, complicated in a country where most relationships are suspect and where even the most conventional family structure is starting to be politically problematic. At the crux of it, of course, is the argument against ‘dynasty’. In Hindi, it sounds even more complicated. The term, parivaar-vaad, is used, which suggests, the support of one’s own family.
The assumption is that a leader with a spouse is likely to hand down the mantle of power to his/her own children, and this looks too much like monarchy for our comfort. There is also the rhetoric around single politicians – by virtue of being footloose and child-free – devoting all their time and energy to the well-being of other people’s children. In actual practice, they might be devoting their time to poetry, photography, or changing outfits a few times more than is strictly necessary.
Those who don’t have their own children often end up grooming a relative who can be trusted – to the extent that trust is possible in politics – or someone not related by blood or marriage but who has hung around long enough to become a substitute child, or mentee.
Some political careers have probably been constructed thus – through the willingness to hang around older politicians who may not have their own children to groom. This method of doing politics, however, is the exact opposite of what a democracy needs. We need people who are agitating towards the resolution of problems – including the difficulties of raising babies and caring for ageing or sick parents – and are willing to risk something in order to do so.
We all know single people in our own lives – an unmarried aunt, a widowed grandparent, a divorced cousin. In my own experience, they are not exceptionally self-sacrificing merely by virtue of being single. On the other hand, some of the most generous people I have known – those who work twice as hard and also volunteer time for public causes, especially to the care of other people’s children – are married mothers.
This is not because they are filled with the literal milk of human kindness. It is because they care enough to fight their way out of the moment and look beyond. Many of them want to create a nation, a planet, a city, a village fit for their kids. Many fathers also work towards similar goals. They manage to be decent husbands and dads, while fighting legal battles for those who need their services, or writing extensively, traveling to meetings and joining demonstrations.
However, deep down, we all know that being single is not the answer to anything. Single people just are what they are – single. Not better, not worse, perhaps a little more vulnerable in their old age. Then why do we idolise single politicians in India?
Part of it is our brutal approach to personal joy. It could be that it makes us peevish to think of a man who wields power, with all its trappings and its endless retirement benefits, also finding love, with its full spectrum of hope, joy and purpose. There must be a spot of envy in our collective soul that demands the sacrifice of happiness at the altar of public validation. Of women, we ask twice the sacrifice. The smallest hint of reaching out for sexual satisfaction and out come the snarling teeth, the howls of disapproval.
Many Indians also assume that all laws will be broken, all systems corrupted in the interests of one’s own child, because this is precisely what they themselves do. What they want, then, is the freedom to go on corrupting the nation for the sake of their biological offspring – starting from kindergarten admissions to Vyapam-like scams, all the way up to offshore bank accounts in tax havens – while revelling in the knowledge that their chosen leader does not have the pleasure of doing the same.
That our chosen leaders might be bending all the laws of the land to empower a handful of business dynasties does not occur to most of us. Perhaps we are so preoccupied with our own families and communities, we find it hard to wrap our minds around the idea that someone can just take a chunk of public resources and hand it on a platter to another’s man’s children.
I am no advocate of dynasty, be it political, cultural or business. At any rate, as history teaches us, no dynasty lasts unless each generation works hard to retain its position. However, what India does need urgently is a nurturing leadership, one that has a serious stake in her future. We do not need leaders who are devoid of all filial, maternal or sexual attachment. We do need leaders who are willing to support everyone’s right to live, with or without dependents and attachments.
Annie Zaidi is a writer of essays, stories, poems, and scripts for stage and screen.