Dhritarashtra syndrome - A good diagnosis indeed
we Indians have a long tradition of leaving the fruits of our hard work to our kith and kiln.....when its in our personal sphere, things are not found fault with.But in the public arena,things are bound to take monstrous proportions as in the case of Amar singh.The one critical thing involved here is the public interest.While, in the corporate world we have the shareholders making their presence felt...its time that we keep a check on such political parties putting family interest first, at the cost of public interest..A country which respects dissent and supports merit system in its social and political organisations can alone prosper,it is bound to disintegrate otherwise..

S N Narain

we shouldn't oppose blindly any person in politics based on their familiy background.But,this dhritarastra syndrome is appearing more in local parties.In local parties followers are blindly accepting their sons/daughters.

In recent memory if there is any one leader who displayed strategic vision (a vision and also a successful strategy to implement the vision) in economic, international,security policies, it was P.V. Narasimha Rao. He was an ordinary looking person with no family connections. How many of you would acknowledge his contributions? How many of you would take his name and associate him with whatever little success India has achieved? If a person of his stature and vision couldn't find a place due to lack of charisma and family connections, how can you expect that any other talented individual would venture in to politics. The problem lies with the press also.

Nehru family's hold on Congress party must end for democracy to be restroed. The current day Gandhi family should take political sanyas and enjoy wealth in their swiss accounts Sagarika. Why point at others when it starts with the real first family of India.

The key to make this so called Dhritarashtra Syndrome less effective in our society we need to EMPOWER WOMEN. For years we have seen our mothers as housewives and their concern was always safety and security of their LAL or LALI and there our fathers played a role of total facilitator, unless the status of mothers in our society is not changed to working from housewives where they also enjoy being independent to be a facilitator too, this wouldn't change. A liberal, educated and independent woman can certainly play major role to cure the society from The Dhritarashtra Syndrome. Symptoms of this Syndrome develop within the four walls of houses we need to take steps to cure it there itself.

Cheers!

PS: Shri Maharaj Dhritarashtra remains the real blind person. At least there he scores. ;-)

As long as an individual (whatever profession he/she pursues) is grown up in educated, liberal environment, understands his/her duties & responsibilities and performs them in rightly manner, of cause honestly and sincerely, to serve the society at large, and A VISIONARY. I personally think it hardly matters which FAMILY he belongs to, but what really matters is where he/she will take us (common people) from now onwards... provided platform becomes a GIFT so that they (Individuals) do not need to waste their energy, intelligence to Re-Invent the wheel, instead just to focus on the betterment/enhancement of the wheel... SEEMS VERY IDEAL THINKING... ;-)

Since you wrote about something, which in our society, we, common people, realize/learn this the very first day we stand on our own feet that how difficult it becomes NOT TO HAVE A NAME ATTACHED... Years ago, Shakespeare very well said "What's in the name?" I think the angle was LOVE... BUT the fact of the matter is "EVERYTHING IS IN THE NAME." In fact Individuals growing up experiencing to see/feel things fall in place so smoothly, get addicted to that and enjoy it in all ways they can except their chosen one OR in words have NO GUTS to leave it behind to set his/her own IDENTITY to do the right thing of his/her choice... And on the other side social/economical environment in our country has never been very courageous as well because NO ONE EVER TRIED/DARED TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY which just goes well against the Dhritarashtra Syndrome theory.... (I am sure in our society we must have a long list of those fellows but at present the focus is on The Dhritarashtra & Company who mostly enjoy elite status in the name of so called leaders...)

The Dhritarashtras of our society have always been so focused (narrow minded) on the difficulties (because of their own disqualifications or in some cases real ones) they faced during the course of their own life that they somehow project it to scare the hell out of an Individual that HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO REACH TO A STATUS/POSITION among Billions of Opportunists. There would be long list of negatives/positives about their thinking but it generally does not streamline with those who believe in change or liberal thinker.

Rightly said..

Hello Madam,

Don't u think BJP & Communist parties are slightly different from this syndrome. Atleast the highest & important posts of these parties are not considered on the basis of bloodliness.

It is said that in a democracy you get what you really deserve, don't we really deserve this? I know many so called educated people around me who are ready to pay any price to get their children placed high up in the social hirarchy though they know their children are most unfit for the place to which they are looking upto.This is the way of life for this country and it will remain so unless one day our entire economical, social, cultural and political structure collapses. Till then it is our duty to keep shouting and telling ourselves in secret ALL IZZ WELL.

fine article. very well written.