The thing about Nepotism

The thing with Nepotism

One interesting thing I learned today is that the word ‘Nepotism’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Nepos’ or ‘nepotis’ which means ‘nephew’.

Um....Nepotism means favouritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. So why specifically nephew, rather than son?

The answer is very interesting. This word came about in the middle ages, when the church clergy –specifically the Catholic clergy- had to take an oath of chastity, and could not (legally) father any children. So these dudes gave their nephews such positions of preference, as would normally be given to a son. Hence the word ‘Nepotism’. (Nephewism, if you wish)

This Uncle to nephew stuff happened at the Pope level too – to such an extent that it constituted creating a papal ‘dynasty’. Many dynasties in fact


If you think about it, it is not very different from normal property succession – a son or daughter takes over the family business and property and runs it after the original owner is retired or dead. Just a change of receiver from direct DNA to derived DNA.

Did you think? If so, you would have spotted the fatal flaw in the argument.

It is not their property that these people are handing over, but a common property – which belongs either to all citizens in case of politics, or shareholders in case of companies, or fans in case of film stars.

The thing that infuriates about nepotism is that family privilege overrides merit in appointing people at crucial positions in the organisation. And the really infuriating thing is that it seems to be the norm rather than the exception.

Nehru started it with Indira, and Indira perpetuated it with an iron hand. Her son after her, his wife after him and now her son after her it seems.

Seeing this shining example, every politico has gotten into it, and now the only young people you see on the scene are the scions of politicos. In every state, every party, every hue of political spectrum is all ruled by family contacts.

The counter argument for this is that dynasty politics works because of a few reasons

1)Strong DNA: Whatever be his morals, no politico is going to rise to the top unless he has some stuff in him, and assumably he will be passing that stuff to his descendants

2)Early exposure and training : the kid sees his fathers business from a young age and finishes his apprenticeship very early in the game.

3)Contacts : The kid will know the big people from an early age, and will have personal relationships with them.

4)No need to do the dirty stuff : The only way an outsider can enter the political minefield is by doing the hard yards, and wading thru a lot of mud and dirty deeds. A police record is almost compulsory before becoming a politician in some states. As the son of a bigshot, he can avoid getting his hands dirty and be the clean face.

All this is fine – but you risk getting an idiot as your king just because of his royal blood, and the decisions that a king makes affects the billions of people in his kingdom.

The whole idea of democracy is to abolish utterly the concept of royal privilege and it is criminally stupid to be going down that path again.

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Even in business, it is becoming alarmingly prevalent. Son of the seth becomes the new seth. Is this a good idea ? Whether you take a Mallya, an Ambani, a Bajaj, a Hinduja, a Singhania –all the old world fat cats are firmly sethias. Even the immaculate Tatas are not different from this. They also keep the chairmanship firmly in their little bawa group.

Obviously the question to ask is ‘does it make a difference’? and the answer would come from doing a control test – take a set of baccha led companies, and a set of professional led companies and see if they differ.

After all, you might get a good baccha and a bad professional manager. So while complete nepotism is bad, banning family members from control just because they are family members is equally discriminatory.

That is true – after all you have so many examples of companies run into the ground by professionals and rescued by the family members – Ford, Disney, Hewlett Packard, etc.

But the point is – will you as a professional manager be more comfortable working for a lala, or for a professionally run organisation?

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After politics, the place where nepotism is most highly visible is Bollywood. The bloody place seems to be a maze of family connections.

See the top 5 male stars

1)Shahrukh khan
2)Akshay Kumar
3)Hrithik Roshan
4)Aamir Khan
5)Salman Khan

We can be happy seeing that the top 2 are non family people – but the bottom 3, and almost the entire list downwards is all family bacchas. Sunny deol, Ajay Devghan, Ranbir, Imran, Vivek Oberoi, and so on and so on. (Lets close the list with Mimoh Chakraborty)

The 5 top female stars
1)Aishwarya Rai
2)Priyanka C
3)Kareena K
4)Katrina K
5)Bipasha B

Interestingly, nepotism is lower in the female side, it would seem. But only because film folk are conservative types and dont want their bahu betis wriggling their booty on screen. And having operated the casting couch themselves for so long, they don’t want their women to be part of the industry and face the same deal.

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However, there is a wave of freshness spreading across the country, mainly due to the new age IT led industries, where the 'old-boy' network is not so powerful. Also, the emergence of a powerful funding source from VCs and angel investors empowered a lot of people to startup their own ventures, which was simply not possible earlier.

Even in bollywood – a very strong mirror of the Indian social scene – we can see the difference. Professionals are breaking through in direction, music, editing, scripting and will soon break into the star system as well. Independent funding is one aspect, marketing and distribution is another. Once we have a truly democratic marketing and DTH channel through the internet, the rule of the distributor and exhibitor will collapse, and will severely diminish the power of the star system. Its going to happen soon.

A changing social scenario, double income households, growing self confidence of Indian middle class, a dismantling of license raj and growing openness of society has also played a huge role in creating a new class of entrepreneurs in all sectors.

Business is not restricted to the ‘business class’ or ‘caste’, and so the ‘mai baap’ avatar of the ‘maalik’ is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

There are many good things about the family business system – a sense of pride and ownership, a driving urge to grow, social and financial support systems, etc – which should not be thrown out with the bathwater so to speak. Family business, professional conglomerates and a bubbling entrepreneur/ start up system have to be living together and providing a counter point to each other.

To come back to the main point – the problem with Nepotism is that it overtrumps merit. Ideally meritocracy should rule, because after all, the show has to go on.