In centuries past, fiefdoms and kingdoms were the power/political structures prevalent in most parts of the world. Rights and privileges were inherited, patrilineally in most cases, as were servitude and bondage. In India, we had pioneered the "Caste" system, which used specious reasoning to explain, and perpetuate, social hierarchies. In many other places, the liege or king was ordained by a pliant priesthood as directly descended from the gods themselves. Pharaoh was seen as Ra, the Sun god, incarnate. Even today, the Japanese royal family claims lineage from Amaterasu Omikami, the Sun goddess. Here in India, many Rajput feudal lines identify themselves as Suryavanshi or Chandravanshi, literally, Sun descendants or Moon descendants.
Divine origins were an excellent ploy to stop all contentious quibbling in its tracks. As was the ironclad law of Karma. You were condemned to incarnate as a life form repeatedly, until your karmic slate was cleansed of the stains of bad deeds and thoughts. If, in this turn of the universal screw, you were a scavenger or leather tanner, it was only fair price to pay for a previous life of sin. Conversely, the brahmin or kshatriya had earned his exalted station by meritorious deeds in earlier lives.
Previous and subsequent lives may have gone from the vocabulary but the hierarchy is undisturbed. It is imperative, particularly for those who are winning the societal sweepstakes, to find a new framework, which retains the inevitability of divine rights or karma, but frames it in more palatable, contemporary language.
I give you MERITOCRACY.
Why am I successful? Because I have been capable, committed, diligent and ever willing to learn. What is more, I have kept this up my entire life. When I was in middle school, my parents got me into a coaching class which prepared me for competitive examinations and/or my high school boards. I worked harder than my peers, aced every test and eventually, got a prized, priceless, admission into a premium institution. I didn't have the benefit of a leg up, unlike other kids who availed of seat reservations to traipse in with much poorer academic records. They wallowed in complacency while I continued to bend my back, put my nose to the grindstone and abjured all pleasures, thus reaching graduation day as a proud recipient of medals, citations, scholarships and endowments. That same spirit of a pursuing excellence makes me the success I am. Now compare that with those indolent louts who envy my success but wouldn't expend a fraction of the effort. They thought they could be my peers just because they entered college on a reserved seat? Heck, no. I got here due solely to my "MERIT".
Sounds convincing?
Advantages which we were, quite literally, born with, are hard to recognize. As a person with no handicaps or disabilities, you don't really see any reason to be particularly grateful for what is widely true about a large majority of the population. PODs, persons of disability, have to struggle to integrate and keep pace. When you hear "disability", you are probably thinking visual deficiencies, speech or hearing problems, or learning impediments like ASD or Autism, etc. Those disabilities are easily perceived, although not necessarily remedied. The incidence of such PWDs, sadly, is a mere fraction of the endemic disability: accident of birth into the wrong caste, community or religion.
How did the circumstances of my birth shape my life? Born into a Hindu brahmin household, I had well educated parents and grandparents. English was the preferred language of conversation, and books full of wonderful knowledge filled many shelves. Opportunities to experience and discover everything, from foods and cuisines of the world, to archaeological finds, travels to distant places and conversations with interesting, urbane people, were mine at every step of the way. The soil I grew in was fertile and well irrigated. The warm light of inspiration suffused my days. To all intents and purposes, I lived at an elevation which was shrouded in a metaphoric cloud from 99% of the population.
If this was not enough, I entered the workplace equipped with a network of contacts which would have been the envy of those with undistinguished backgrounds. Doors opened, as if by magic, when I merely looked at them. I spoke the insider's lingua and understood barely perceptible winks and nudges, far outside the ken of those not to the manor born.
If this still sounds to you like the victory of "merit" over whatever is its opposite, I will leave now, so you can enjoy the views where, it is said, the Sun don't shine.
