Letter to the Economist that went unpublished, the bastards :
When the leaders of the Indian Independence movement ruled out a sectarian government in favour of a secular democracy, everyone braced themselves for polling stations and civil society. Yet they have never quite abandoned political nepotism. The knowledge and expertise of any trade in India is passed from father to son and so on down the line (a legacy of the caste system). Who else would be better equipped to make leather shoes than someone whose father's father's father also made leather shoes? And so it is in politics.
Indians believe that the Ghandi/Nehru dynasty is the best trained for the job because it's a family tradition. I once asked a shoe-cleaner on the streets of Amritsar why he chose that profession and he looked at me like I had paneer for brains. Is it any wonder Indians don't question Rahul Ghandi's trajectory towards congress-wallah, and possibly even PM-wallah?
Answers on a postcard.
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