Do physical or more specifically facial resemblances to one's ancestors make a difference? The answer depends on who is being asked the question. And when the query relates to political ancestry, one can be sure that a pretty large number of people will ponder the issue, for the good reason that people all over the world take an abiding interest in politics. Indeed, political conversations have always been part of life, especially in the modern era, all around the globe.
Just how politics can be commented on was never as brilliantly reflected as it was by the actor Charlie Chaplin. His clever moves to mock Adolf Hitler by sporting a Fuhrer-like tiny excuse of a moustache were to become part of the public consciousness in his silent movies.
In our times, caricature has been an essential component of journalism, as we have observed through political cartoons. In a very fundamental way, cartoons have conveyed ideas of politics to newspaper readers in ways more profound than articles or op-eds have. In the course of the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson was often the butt of cartoons that constantly highlighted the folly of his policies before readers.
On a more serious note, however, we go back to our opening question of descendants, political ones, that is, bearing resemblances to their ancestors, again political ones. Those who watched Priyanka Gandhi Vadra speak in India's Lok Sabha the other day did not fail to draw attention to the physical similarities she shared with her grandmother Indira Gandhi. Vadra's facial resemblance has features that have a remarkable closeness to Mrs Gandhi's.
It was all in evidence as she spoke in parliament on the issues the BJP government and the opposition Congress are locked in through endless debate these days. Noticeable too was the cool manner, interspersed with steely substance, she brought into her remarks. The face, the body language, the words were all a journey back to the mannerisms of Indira Gandhi in her days in power.
Talk of physical similarities takes us to the United States, where people are currently busy trying to see if Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who will soon be part of the Trump administration if he is confirmed by the Senate, resembles his father Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated at the age of forty-two while campaigning for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1968. In RFK Jr one can spot traces of his father's looks, but there is also the truth that he is seventy-plus.
That is one way of suggesting that perhaps at age forty-two he may have quite looked like his father, but at seventy-plus it is an ageing man who has little more than the Kennedy name, though not the old magic, that comes with his sudden prominence in politics.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr of the Philippines bears a striking resemblance to his father, the late President Ferdinand Marcos. In quite a similar fashion, former President Benigno Aquino Jr, the son of the assassinated Senator Benigno Aquino, could be mistaken by people as a resurrection of the latter. In the Philippines, therefore, it is rather curious that the sons of Ferdinand Marcos and Benigno Aquino have inherited their fathers' looks.
There are not many places in the world where you might spot such resemblances. But, yes, there are often the images of people, completely unrelated to one another, who happen to be represented in portraits in ways that bring them close in facial resemblance. Think of the successive Presidents of Indonesia whose pictures, if placed in a gallery, would convey this reality. Observe the images from Sukarno to Prabowo. You would think they spring from the same clan.
In Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of Benazir Bhutto, has a good resemblance to his executed grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. While the grandfather's speeches at public rallies were harangues directed at his rivals in fiery manner, the grandson's attempts to emulate those harangues have lacked the spark which marked ZAB's politics in the 1960s and 1970s. At another end, Gohar Ayub Khan, the son of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, had looks which reminded people of the first military ruler of Pakistan.
Ayub Khan's grandson, Omer Ayub Khan, currently a leading figure in Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, is possessed of a slim figure but has the old Ayub Khan look all the same. Khan Abdul Wali Khan, the late Pakhtun politician, bore a good resemblance to his father, the Frontier Gandhi otherwise known as Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bears his father Pierre Trudeau's name, but not much of a physical similarity seems to be there. There are, though, in the younger Trudeau traces of the smile which the older Trudeau, who was praised for his Kennedy-like appearance when he first ascended to power in 1968, flashed in his moments of good cheer.
One can easily make out that George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush are related by blood, though the former has always had a more informal bearing in terms of personality. But genes, where looks are considered about families, do not always work or impress. In India's Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav has a physique which is quite removed from that of his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.
But do looks matter in politics, particularly when they pertain to clans and families? How does psychology explain this popular obsession with looks? Why is it that the Kennedys, despite their numerous shortcomings, have always been a subject of attraction around the world?
Why is it that many in our subcontinent have begun to imagine that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will someday be India's Prime Minister? Despite ours being an age of democracy where dynasties are frowned upon, how hard is it for people to avoid falling for dynasties, often resting on the looks of their members, in the expectation that they will make a change in the lives of millions?
Looks could be deceptive, of course. Not always, though. That piercing look in Indira Gandhi's eyes, that beaming smile bathing the face of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, transport observers back to reflections of what has been and toward thoughts of what might be.
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