A Modest Proposal

Since we in South Asia in general, and Bangladesh in particular, are addicted to dynastic democracy, may I make a modest suggestion?

In Bangladesh (and the model may be worthy of emulation), we should try and bring the 21st century into our politics by cloning our dynastic leaders. They will then look exactly like the real thing, and the people will be no whit wiser.

At the same time, we should apply modern genetic technology to remove aggressive genes from the clones, and make our leaders less assertive and violent.

This way, the two dynasties would be able to coexist in harmony, and we’ll have a virtual national government, with each bowing out gracefully after every election. They can then dispense with their thugs, armed students and violently faithful teachers and bureaucrats.

And if any nasty atavistic, recessive gene turns up, well, we can simply clone the clones and remove that gene.

There will be only one problem, albeit a minor one: what to do with the real McKoys?