No Law to save Joint Families

 (All views based on personal observations of numerous clients)

Nuclear families are on the rise in India, not because one is happy to live alone, but because he is silently getting suppressed in a joint family. If the seniors of a joint family, have the habit of overeating and have constipation, then what happens in the family? Constipation is declared a family problem and everyone is supposed to take desi-medicines and sweet-lime juices, even if they end up having loose motion. A fitness freak in the family has to drink lime-juices instead of eating protein rich foods like groundnuts, cashew nuts, etc. We all know that if joint families work well, then it has no Interpersonal-issues and its commercial performance can out-perform the most dynamic corporations. Twenty years ago, A banker said so beautifully that one could have a long discussion with Mukesh Ambani in the night and continue it the next morning with Anil Ambani, without any mismatch.

Joint family has been the foundation of the Indian Culture and drives numerous financial transactions, But sadly there is no law or even a "written awareness" to preserve this unique and divine blessing of this nation. In most modern and developed nations, Joint families as in India is unheard and unknown. A joint family in India is like one mother cooks food for 15 cousins without giving any special attention to her own kids. One mother gives bath to the same 15 kids one after another. One father drops to 15 kids to school and brings them back home. Cousins become more closer to each other than own brothers and sisters. One becomes more closer to his Uncle than his father and more closer to his Aunty than his mother. Not just food, clothes, toys, books, notes, pencils, pens, bats, balls, rackets, shoes, socks, etc. gets shared across the family. Every morning there are petty quarrels and by evening all enjoy serials and songs together on the terrace. One brother's friend become a friend of all his 14 cousins also. The social networks of all these 15 cousins gets shared among themselves.

But if the family lands in the Courts for just a partition that can be closed in 2 days, their misery takes off. In India family partitions suits can go on for decades and generations and get finally get dismissed for non prosecution. There are many partition decrees that never get executed but get dismissed for non prosecution. Rather than hoping for law makers to wake up, lets understand and adopt intelligent practices.

Lets declare myths that need to be deleted for targeting a bright future of Joint families:

1. Myth 1: If partitioned, A joint family loses all bonds of affection and fails to unite at will.

2. Myth 2: If not-partitioned, A joint family is well bonded and has no ill-will.

3. Myth 3: A joint family has to live together to be bonded well.

A bonded joint family can be united after partition and an un-partitioned family can be living together and still plot conspiracies internally among its members.

Joint families have always hated the word "partition" and "accounting". But smaller partitions and regular accounting can save tons of bitterness and bond them for generations.

Multiple Partitions in small portions & Regular Accounting can save Joint Families.

Regular Accounting can save Joint Families: Joint families are very fast and effective in dividing and delegating the work-load, but very disproportionate in crediting the profits and acknowledging the efforts of different members. They are still bad in acknowledging the losses and are experts in hiding losses by imaginary concepts. Eg. Inventory that becomes outdated-scrap is never liquidated on time. Every stupid article is considered an appreciating asset. Joint families reward speculation more than systems. This brings in chaos which is rewarding in the short run but goes out of control in the long run. Every joint family bets very huge on its network and spends a huge proportion of its cash in satisfying that network. Generally casual networks have more "devils" than "angels". When the network takes control over the logic, intelligence, long-term planning and systems of the family, it goes undetected till the family gets bankrupt.

The joint account of a family only shows the assets and liability of the family and the joint profits held together. Everybody gets intoxicated by the large figures in the joint-statement and each one thinks he has almost has 100% control over ALL these assets. Joint family accounts do not value the time, talent, passion, vision, etc. of each member accurately and all human beings are treated like similar horses of the same stable. Each member's time is not discriminated well nor used in the manner most rewarding to him. Slowly manipulation moves into the family. The smart working members work more to take control of the right-assets and the innocent members only work to be admired. Its only after decades of manipulation and fake accounting, the hard reality comes to the surface.

But what can be done regularly, to avoid manipulation and frustration in a joint family and keep it united. Firstly the financial statements of the joint family needs to be prepared monthly or at least quarterly and shown to everyone. Secondly the financial statement of each person or sub-family has to be generated, so that he is/they are aware what to expect from the joint-family resources. When things are transparent, all unrealistic expectations are killed. If members of the family are unhappy with a monthly or quarterly accounting, they can express their dissatisfaction over a smaller sum of money, more happily and get it corrected or written off. On the contrary if a 5-year or a 20-year statements are prepared, the differences will be over large sums of money, and many people will not write it off nor ignore it. The bitterness, the quarrels, the frustration, the hatred would be huge and sufficient to create spoken or unspoken enmity. Unlike other battles where Ma-behen-slangs can be used freely and frustrations can be vented and evaporated off in a short period, But in a joint family battle the options are very limited and the hurt is very deep and lives for decades or generations. In India, we have a culture of postponing the money discussion to the end, but that is good in a one-time interaction with strangers and not with people with whom you want to have multiple (formal and informal) transactions going on concurrently and not when you want to live happily with them for decades.

Now coming to the rosy part of proper joint family accounting. When the number of members in a joint family exceed 20 and they are spread across geographically in 5 jurisdictions, and each has 2-4 companies, and these companies trade with each other constantly, then even their Internal Auditors fail to detect which transaction played what game and to by-pass which system or law. A large joint-family can monitor the tender process of any Government-Department well for a month/quarter and form a strategy to monopolise it, without being detected by any formal procedure. I can make a list of laws, that has no procedures to detect a well-coordinated game of a joint family. Affectionately partitioned joint family can become more bonded and synergised than undivided families. Affectionately partitioned joint families can be a dominant financial force, without attracting any negative attention. 

Multiple Smaller partitions can save Joint families: The Indian Income Tax laws has a rule that a family can be partitioned only once, which is very impractical. Families which are large or have large number of diverse assets or that are geographical spread in different jurisdictions and families that have been united for numerous generations, need to be partitioned many times in smaller bits, to avoid emotional outbursts and hold and retain the bonding in the family.

Age cannot replace Merit: In Indian Culture, Age has been the basis of acknowledging intelligence and a older people are considered more intelligent and more wise than younger people. This thumb rule worked well for ages despite its bad manipulations, but the way information is exploding on social media, and the manner in which experiences are being shared, Wisdom and Knowledge are everywhere for a searcher. To hold a family united, Elders need to resign their domination and avoid instant ego-gratifications. Youngsters have to tactfully escape domination and wisely surrender to ideas that produce exponential long-term gains.

In a new era, where information is more accessible than water, spouse and toilet, Joint Families have to adopt new thumb-rules to manage its life-cycle even beyond its partition to preserve its love, pride, growth and constructive passions.