For a young nation, we seem to be obsessed with "seniority"

One hears it all the time. “Senior lawyer”, “senior doctor”, “senior politician”, even - ahem - a “senior journalist”. What on earth is everyone referring to? The word “senior” here refers to presumably someone with a lot of experience and standing in his or her profession. “Senior” has become almost as ubiquitous as the old “eminent” fubble. Remember a time when all economists were “eminent”, and - God forbid - all lawyers were equally “eminent”?

Now it’s senior this and senior that. In a country that’s getting younger by the day, the number of seniors seems to be rising daily. This is funny.

Why the fetish for seniority? Kennedy becomes president of the United States at 43. Clinton and Obama a few years later. Seniority is geriatricity in some cultures. Here it’s not.

Credibility

Part of the reason is the cultural predisposition that instinctively respects elders and hierarchy. It seems to be more prevalant in the public and government sectors, than in the private sector. In the private sector, an uneasy coexistence between seniority and more international merit-based cultures seems to be the norm.

Part of the phenomenon has to do with the quest for credibility. Senior sounds credible. Better than junior at least. The phenomenon is particularly acute in certain professions like law, which are totally seniority driven. It is quite common in the legal profession to have a 55-year-old refer to a 65-year-old as “my senior”. The reverse on the referral to the 55-year-old “junior” is equally true! Seniority as a principle is understandable in the legal profession, where laws are so subjective, and interpretation and judgment are a bit of a lottery. Seniority can then really sway things.

The legal profession even has someone who gets the formal appellation of “senior counsel”. Many of these worthies are in the business of selling their face value and seniority. There are even situations where one side gets a senior counsel and the advocate for the opposing side says “Oh dear, they’ve got a senior counsel, so now we need one too”. Here we have the spectacle of seniority as an arms race!

While understandable in the legal profession, one would imagine that seniority would be less prevalent in fields like public policy and journalism. After all, the young have more interesting ideas. But in these areas, we see it’s even more prevalent. Every second person - on TV at least - is a “senior journalist” nowadays. A lot of this is also driven by the search for credibility. Credibility is a big deal in punditry. Besides, often the discourse is so subjective, and the debate so half assed, that having the “senior” nomenclature behind you gives viewers a certain comfort level.

We tend to be a people who trust age and grey hair a lot more than other cultures. Sad, as the drawbacks of age are equally overlooked in this approach. Just as Americans instinctively trust youth, and then trust it some more, we tend to trust age, and then trust it even more.

The bureaucracy takes this phenomenon of seniority to its reductio ad absurdum finality. In fact, it is in the bureaucracy that we see the formal definition of the term “seniority” - when the tenure of service determines the order of precedence in making a promotion. Officially, at lower levels all promotions are seniority based, while at higher levels it’s a combination of merit and seniority. In fact - even at higher levels - seniority becomes the guiding principle of promotions. The political leadership, often out of timidity, abdicates its desire to exercise judgment and resorts to the seniority principle. This at least, avoids the howls of controversy generated by a rambunctious media. Institutionalised mediocrity is the oft lamented result. Sometimes, determining seniority boils down to what order the relevant officers were entered into a register on the day they joined the service decades ago !

There are some advantages to the concept though. There is less scope for favouritism, particularly on caste or regional lines, and this could boost morale and reduce internal strife. The problems include mediocrity, and low length of tenure at the top resulting in revolving door leadership.

Lines of Succession

Seniority can be a particularly delicate issue in the armed forces. Here the principle is so entrenched, despite claims to the contrary, that there are actually references to a “line of succession” - the same phrase used to determine precedence in monarchical succession! Attempts by the political leadership to exercise discretion actually result in court challenges, something unheard of in other countries. In areas like research and development, where young blood is vital, this can produce tricky results.

In the political leadership, seniority as a principle seems totally entrenched. Rahul Gandhi is still Rahul baba, despite being the same age Kennedy was when he assumed the US presidency. The average age of the Indian cabinet till very recently was in the late sixties, and that’s almost two generations removed from two thirds of this country’s population!

The one area where the principle is not entrenched is in the private sector. Here we see an uneasy coexistence between international norms of merit, on the one hand, and tenure rights and the sense of entitlement that comes with seniority, on the other.

The best part of the seniority appellation is that it does not need to be affirmed by anyone, but can be self attributed by the person themselves. You can just start calling yourself “senior this” and “senior that” and as long as you don’t look like a teenager you get away with it. As long as you look the wrong side of 50, you’re OK. In fact - in this fiddle faddle - being on the wrong side of 50 is being on the right side of 50! Wonderful.

Heck, even I’ve started calling myself a senior contributor, and my editors look the other way. So all you budding “seniors” below 50 out there. The hair dye rule applies. If you’re really old, then you can get away with dyeing your hair. All the netas do it anyways. But if you’re young, keep the dye off. Just let your hair go naturally grey, and start calling yourself “senior”.

That’s it. Now watch your punditry quotient improve.

Adil Rustomjee is an investment advisor in Mumbai. Comments are welcome at a_rustomjee@hotmail.com