–Mohammad Mansoor Alam
Sushant Singh Rajput killed himself by committing suicide. It has been more than 40 days since his sad demise. Digital activists, media and petty politicians are regularly trying to dig to find out something favourable. Charges are being shifted from nobody to somebody to anybody.
Nepotism is the villain this time unlike suicide of Jiah Khan where a suicide note was present and the deceased had specifically pointed out the name of the son of Aditya Pancholi, Sooraj Pancholi. In case of Sushant Singh, there is no note of suicide. Wish he could have explained the reason (left a note) before leaving this world forever!
Unlike what others think I do not believe nepotism may be the cause of somebody’s suicide especially in case of Sushant Singh who did films if not a good number, even it was not a bad one. Recently, he did a film with Manoj Vajpayee. It is different that he could not impress the audience much to be in 100 crores club.
Nepotism is everywhere.
A friend of mine, an Other Backward Class works in a multi national company. He was narrating his story a few months back that how he feel humiliated among 99 percent brahmins (not forward Hindus even) and how many of them do not share dining desk with him.
“I work more than them yet positions belong to them. I am like a foot soldier in a corporate and everybody who is a Brahmin is my boss. They have the edge over me not because I am less talented, it is simple because they belong to the caste of the owner of the company,” he said.
I do not want to name my friend because he does not want so. He does not even want to let others know the name of his company. When asked why? “Boss, my coding error has a price even, escalating the issue in public will be a sin” he was not happy when he said this when I called him up to say that I am mentioning his misery in my writing.
This is much available in judiciary, bureaucracy everywhere albeit its form may be different. A year or two back, I asked Vice Chancellor of NALSAR University Mr. Faizan Mustafa when he was in a lecture program organised by Bihar Collective in Patna if he thinks Collegium system in top judiciary is some kind of nepotism. He was reluctantly positive in his answer.
In politics, it is deep rooted. We have a close example of Lalu Prasad Yadav and RJD. Narendra Modi in a rally had said that Lalu wanted to settle his kids in politics. He was not much wrong. Rashtriya Janta Dal, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Shiv Sena, JMM are bright examples of nepotism.
After Lalu Prasad, Rabri Devi and after Rabri Devi, their kids rule the roost in RJD. Similarly, in Samajwadi Party, after Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav is ruling. Grapevine is that if Azam Khan had left his seat of Rampur for Dimple Yadav (wife of Akhilesh Yadav) he would not have been parcelled to jail. I do not endorse this theory but people say so very loud. A spotless figure of RJD Abdul Bari Siddiqui is even nowhere in the RJD.
There should have been less scope for nepotism in BSP as Mayawati did not marry and reproduce children. However, very recently in 2019 nepotism gripped the BSP. Mayawati made her younger brother Anand Kumar as vice president of the party and her nephew Anand’s son Aakash Anand as national coordinator of the party. Anand Kumar has an interesting journey, from a penniless clerk to a billionaire. Google his name and you will find everything.
Congress is only bad name in terms of nepotism. Nehru, Indira and Rajiv became Prime Ministers of India but they never had more than one or two portfolios unlike many. Even Nehru did not launch Indira and Indira did not launch Rajiv. It was Congressmen who selected Indira out of affection for Nehru and in case of Rajiv, out of tragedy. Sonia Gandhi did not choose to become Prime Minister but her sacrifice was not a holy one because of her origin.
Nepotism is deep rooted in BJP much alike in Congress. Every big neta of BJP who has a family and kids has settled them somewhere in the party. And if a Neta who does not want to drag his kids in politics is giving leverage to them of his/her position in the power. Son of Amit Shah and Daughter of Sushma Swaraj are not in politics but they are not away from its cream. See what Google tells more about these twos.
BJP has a history of nepotism from Munde to Mahajan to Ravishankar Prasad to Kalyan Singh, Rajnath Singh, Vijayaraje Scindia and many others.
Top post in the BJP is decided in Nagpur and not by the party members. It is a holy kind of nepotism, isn’t it?
Nepotism is limited to Bollywood and it may be a cause for somebody taking his or her life seem unjustifiable.
Nepotism, however deep in any field cannot stop talents from moving ahead. It cannot abet someone to commit suicide at all.
Especially, where public performance is needed, nepotism dies its own death. Bollywood is something where box office decides the fate. And the fate of Box Office is decided by people who spend their money.
If nepotism is behind the success in Bollywood, Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbeer Kapoor would have been a super star and Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ranbir Singh, Manoj Vajpayee would have been doing side roles.
So what is the tantrum about? Richa Chaddha well explained this in her conversation with Rajdeep Sardesai. It is all about setting your priorities on your behalf by the sponsored media.
Your priority is set now – to find out whether Sushant committed a suicide or he was murdered. Effect of pandemic on your life, floods, farmers agony, bad state of democracy, rising petrol and diesel prices, unemployment and joblessness are not in your list of issues.
Yes, now it is Ram Mandir. When it is decided by the top court that Ram Mandir would be built there why this hullabolo?
This is all about stealing your genuine issues, ladies and gentlemen.
(Mohammad Mansoor Alam is an amateur journalist based in Patna. His views are personal.)
