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Sunil Sethi: Fratricide and other family feuds

AL FRESCO

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Sunil Sethi New Delhi
Last Updated : Jun 14 2013 | 5:07 PM IST
Until Pramod Mahajan died at the hands of his brother, most people assumed that fratricide was a phenomenon that belonged to the Middle Ages, when princes soaked the pages of history with blood in their quest for power. The Mahajan murder is a throwback to those moments of sibling rivalry. And for all the hours and reams of footage and newsprint expended on the gory episode, it's still absolutely not clear what Pravin Mahajan's motive for killing his brother was.
 
He appears of sound mind and the murder was premeditated. Yet he expresses only a nebulous sense of grievance. What is this sense of injustice that Pravin suffered from, how had Pramod wronged him? There can be only one explanation. Pravin felt that he was not a beneficiary of his elder brother's meteoric success. He had lost out somehow. In other words, there was no sharing of the spoils of wealth that political power ensures among political families.
 
Pramod Mahajan's murder, in fact, reflects sadly on the Indian political class. It is also a sign of how medieval and barbaric family feuds can become. Kumar Ketkar, the journalist, made a good point the other day when he said that whereas sharing power and wealth""from dynastic succession to the amassing of ill-gotten assets""had been institutionalised in the Congress and other family-run parties, it is comparatively new to the BJP.
 
It is alleged in the Volcker report that Natwar Singh was a beneficiary in Iraq's oil-for-food payoffs. The CBI claims to have unearthed proof of assets worth Rs 1,467 crore in raids on the former Haryana chief minister's premises. And the list of the unnamed is far longer in scam after scam whispered about in the Capital's corridors of power.
 
Is it any wonder that Pravin Mahajan's sense of injury deepened as he watched his brother and brother-in-law Gopinath Munde emerge as powerful party managers and fund-raisers, stellar examples of "India Shining"? How had he been left behind, without much work or money in a clapped-out flat in distant Thane when close family members prospered in high-security grace-and-favour apartments in smart Worli?
 
More than at any time where you live and what property you own define who you are and your worth. It is not just the rising fortunes of political families are linked to acquisitions of vast assets, lesser mortals are seriously affected by rising property values. In recent days, I have been asked to help in negotiating a matrimonial settlement of a marriage that is about to end in divorce. Apart from the years of marital estrangements and acrimony, it was a revelation to discover that at the heart of the bitter division was the price of the house the couple has shared for 35 years. Bought for a couple of lakhs in the early 1970s the house is now valued at many many crores. It has exacerbated the financial and legal problems of the case and intensified the sense of grievance and injury on both sides.
 
Like grim-faced delegations at a summit, the two parties sit with their opposing counsels""both well-known advocates of the Delhi High Court""and assorted accountants, builders, brokers and family members. Afterwards, both the lawyers tell me that injunctions on feared eviction from matrimonial homes by women now far outstrip routine grounds for divorce, such as desertion, cruelty or incompatibility. In fact, it had led to a new definition of what constitutes a matrimonial home""the occupant could be a companion or mistress rather than a lawful wife.
 
So were the growing cases of family estrangements a sign of the Age of Greed? Oh yes, said the learned counsel, given the rate and speed at which civil cases become criminal. Forced evictions, physical threats and violence""she was even handling a case where an old father claimed he was being poisoned by his son.
 
Not to speak of murder, the final redress of the aggrieved in a family feud. But we know that already.

 
 

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First Published: May 06 2006 | 12:00 AM IST

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