A nation of feuds

Shah Rukh Khan versus Salman, Modi versus Rahul, Mukesh versus Anil, Sen versus Bhagwati, Paes versus Bhupathi, and so on and so forth. We appear to be a nation obsessed with feuds. Some real, some imagined, and a few like the testosterone-charged actors mentioned at the start - seemingly resolved.

But nevertheless , battles that take up reams of newsprint, consume acres of mindspace and often result in only enough hot air to raise the TRP numbers of a few news channels.

Have we always been such contrarian and squabbling people? I think not. Back in the days of the Independence struggle, it seems there was enough political room to accommodate larger- than-life personalities like Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Maulana Azad. Sure, there was a fair share of back room sparring and ideological flash points, but the sharp personality-driven discords that we witness today appear absent.

Even Indira Gandhi when she staked her claim to power and took on old Congress warhorses like K Kamaraj, Morarji Desai and S Nijalingappa appeared to be pitted against the Syndicate.

In the film industry, the rivalry of the Triumvirate, or the Big Three superstars of the era, Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, was palpable. But then again it was not heralded as the Tweedldee versus Tweedledum syndrome of today. As for the Tatas and the Birlas, though their names were linked in a kind of litany to big business, JRD and GD Birla made sure the competition between the two business houses they headed never degenerated into a slugfest.

Things changed around the 1980s with the onset of the Dhirubhai Ambani- Nusli Wadia feud, and when Swaraj Paul took on HP Nanda. In films, Amitabh Bachchan was pitted in the public imagination against Rajesh Khanna, and Parveen Babi against Zeenat Aman.

Personality battles were breaking all over the place: Pritish Nandy commissioned Hussain to denounce Sabavala in the Illustrated Weekly; the rivalry between Kapil Dev and Gavaskar was a media fanned one; and of course it was the era of the mother of all battles: Rajiv Gandhi versus VP Singh.

The eighties was a time when the media, the public and vested interests realised that personality-driven battles engaged and interested the aam aadmi like none other. Gone were issues and ideological points of difference and gravitas. In came who hates whom, who's right, who's wrong and who said what to whom. This trend gained momentum by the turn of the century. The personalities changed, the syndrome carried on. Now no molehill was too small to turn into a mountain, no acrimony unworthy of a headline.

Do other societies and cultures function like this? I think not. In England, as in America, the political firmament might be dominated by two parties on different sides of the Left-Right debate, but the narrative appears broader and nuanced. In popular culture, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicaprio rein, and in high art, as in the world of letters, Damien Hirst or Marquez are not cast as eternal duelists feuding an omnipresent and worthy rival.

How do we beak out of this unhealthy trend? When will we grow up and realise that most of these feuds are self-defeating and expend too much energy? And what will we do with our time and energy when Tweedledee and Tweedledum lay down their arms and call a truce?

Oh wait, they just did: Shah Rukh hugged Salman! Hell!

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com