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Father-son battles are not new, but sad to witness

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Damayanti Datta
Damayanti DattaOct 25, 2016 | 09:45

Father-son battles are not new, but sad to witness

"The greatest father you can have but the one father I wish I did not have." That’s how Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was described by his eldest son, Harilal — a man who spent his entire life rebelling against his father. 

It’s the saddest thing ever: when fathers and sons fight. Tao philosopher Lao Tzu called it a "state of madness and disease." But it’s much more common than we imagine it to be: from Greek tragedies to contemporary classics to newspaper reports. 

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Remember Turgenev’s Fathers And Sons, where all the fathers and sons fight with each other? German novelist Franz Kafka in his Letter to My Father talks about his father’s "total lack of feeling for the suffering and shame (he) could inflict on (Kafka) with your words and judgments."

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Many political leaders and families have sacrificed blood ties to the allure of that game of thrones.

Recently, a Delhi resident was asked to vacate his home by a court. His father had filed a case that the property was rented out to his son by him, but the son had not bothered to pay him for a decade. This year, a 50-year-old man in Maharashtra had allegedly killed his son by hitting him with a hammer over a petty fight.

Astonishing to many, but not to psychologists, who see too many such cases. To them, often it’s a conflict with authority or lack of any meaningful relationship. Men, both fathers and sons, often seem to live as emotional absentees. 

In India, there is an added dimension: the Yayati complex. As mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik wrote in an Economic Times "Corporate Dossier": "Here, it is the father who triumphs and the son loses. And the defeat of the son, often voluntary, is glorified."

In the still-unfolding fracas between the Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son, Akhilesh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, one can only speculate as to what the real issues are between Yadav senior and junior. 

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It could be all of the above plus that one overwhelming truth: politics. Politics is all about power — winning, losing, strategising and savage cynicism. That’s a heady cauldron. No wonder, so many political leaders and families have sacrificed blood ties to the allure of that game of thrones.

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Last updated: October 25, 2016 | 12:01
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