SIX years ago, on Nov. 17, liquor baron Ponty Chadha and his brother Hardeep killed each other in a shootout.
As one relative said, “Is it God’s will? Both brothers had an amazing life but suddenly everything fell like a house of cards.”
What really happened? What triggered all this senseless Abel and Cain curse? With the family wealth estimated at US$10 billion spread across real estate, shopping malls, sugar mills and film production, no one could ever imagine that the clash between two heirs would culminate in a fierce gun battle at one of their family’s farmhouses just North of Delhi. It is therefore crucial to understand the circumstances that drove a sibling to savagely kill another sibling.
A family with sufficient wealth is likely to be going through some form of tension or is on the verge of a major conflict or bracing for the “big one to end it all” just like what happened to the Chadha brothers.
As a family business advisor constantly collaborating with inheritance experts, we are regularly confronted with families behaving irrationally. Heirs, usually siblings, who are normal, decent people, highly educated and respectable members in their community regress to fighting, screaming children with some resorting to threats and intimidation and some inflicting physical pain against each other.
Admittedly, nearly every family has some amount of tension simmering just beneath the surface as they address ownership issues. In every country that I usually visit, I hear stories of families in conflict as a result of the following events that impact the family business system:
-Illness/death of a key family figure,
-Major misalignment of family values,
-Major fight among siblings,
-Siblings siding with one another
-Conflict between generations of family branches
Most of the drama happens immediately right after the death of a loved one who is usually a key family figure. Offspring fights can be embarrassing, ridiculous and petty. Some may wonder why family members just can’t get along. But there is a compelling explanation why a family member will go to the full extent of hurting a family member.
Mark Accettura, author of the book, “Blood & Money: Why Families Fight Over Inheritance and What to Do About It” has a clear explanation: “The combatants can always trace their problems back several years, if not all the way back to childhood. It is clear that inheritance conflict doesn’t come out of the blue; it is a continuation of long-term relationship problems that resurface upon the illness or death of a loved one. And they aren’t just about money or greed; they are about more, much more.
But what is it that so often drives people to wage war against their own flesh and blood over a loved one’s estate?” Accettura correctly points out: “I have learned that what appears as greed and pettiness are really symptoms of survivors’ struggle to feel loved and important. The fight for money and things-–Dad’s watch, Mom’s wedding ring-–is not about the object or the money itself, but about what they symbolize: importance, love, security, self-esteem, connectedness and immortality.
“The old adage that ‘money makes people do funny things’ doesn’t do justice to the real problems and root causes of family conflict. Money is not the core reason that families fight; money is how we keep score in the fight for the intangibles of love, approval and primordial survival. Money and possessions also help allay the fears of those left behind. When families fight, greed is rarely the principal motive.”