some iteration
Main entry: it-er-a-tion
Function: noun
Date:15th century
1: the action or a process of iterating or repeating:
as a: a procedure in which repetition of a sequence of operations yields results successively closer to a desired result !
India’s politicians keep it in the family
BBC News, Delhi
As India’s new cabinet was sworn in, the biggest applause was reserved for one of its youngest members, Agatha Sangma, who is all of 28.
She was among several young faces who were brought into government by the Congress party to inject a sense of freshness and energy after its resounding poll victory.
But every single one of them belongs to political families.
Political nepotism appears to be a trend that isn’t abating but seemingly spreading beyond the influential Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to a handful of clans across India.
So the formation of the new cabinet was held up because the chief of the southern Dravida Munnetra Khazagam (DMK) party wanted posts for his children and members of his extended family.
Even the smaller parties are often family fiefdoms with parents handing over the reins to their children.
substituted iteration:
India’s politicians keep it in the family
India’s businessmen keep it in the family
India’s academicians keep it in the family
India’s actors keep it in the family
India’s poor keep it in the family
Next entry: de-moc-ra-cy
Function: noun
Date: 1576
1 a: government by the people ; especially : rule of the majority
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government and
4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
3 Responses
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The only two institutions on which India democracy seems to be sustained are family and caste. This is true for the Congress and practically every other party, in some cases it is both. Ideology based outfits like the BJP and the CPM’ don’t seem to have many takers. I am not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.
Hi rw,
It appears to me that most of our institutions are tribal and hence natural organizations, much like animal societies, and it is democracy that is the unnatural process – an imposition of order that is there mainly for subversion. Ideology without a biological basis doesn’t seem to work for us.
INDIA-THE POST ELECTION ANALYSIS
The elections here have been more or less a family affair what with the two cousins Rahul and Varun in the forefront……..two in the same avatars as the startlingly different personalities as Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi…..they stood out just the same…black and white, light and darkness ,positive and negative ,healthy and sickly. So very unfortunate for Varun even more because of his mother crusade against cruelty to animals!!! Mayawati was right in dealing with him the way she did……or the elections may not have turned so much in favour of the congress.
Its true Indian Democracy is a family and caste based….how could it be otherwise???? Till the masses are lifted out of their slumber….though its just sixty years since independence and the idea of freedom and constitutional rights is yet to sink in !!!!Otherwise would fifty thousand tribals side with the dreaded Maoists in West Bengal and bring on their own decimation? Poverty is suicidal by nature…….GOD is with the POOR its said but who cares for Him/Her??