There is
crisis of true leadership in India, leaders who could steer the people by the
strength of their sacrifice, motivational abilities, organizational skill,
ideology are few. During our freedom struggle such leaders were in large
numbers. They were in various states. Patel brothers in Gujrat, Chitranjan Das and Netaji Subhash in Bengal. Rajendra Prasad in Bihar , Nehrus in U P. Ali
brothers, Maulana Azad, Madan Mohan
Malviya . Rajaji, Srinivas Ayengar and
Prakasham in South. Lala Lajpat Rai in
Punjab. Tilak in Maharashtra. And many others.The leadership of the freedom
struggle was the people’s leadership . They may have had shortcomings but they were in touch with the ground
reality. They emerged after rubbing shoulders with their countrymen.
What is the scene now ? What we have is a bunch of ‘E’ leaders , leaders created by media /TV/internet . Leaders who have been nominated to lead. Some of them with their talent and ability have become mass leaders in that the people identify a certain ideology, certain principles in them, and have expectations. Sonia Gandhi is one. She was not a mass leader ,she was made the Congress President and now she is the party’s principal vote catcher. Is there any other person in the Congress who can garner votes for them? Very few with limited and regional appeal may be there. Those who were mass leaders in the Congress have left the Party and formed their own outfit: Mamta Bannerjee, Sharad Pawar. Some are regional players . Tarun Gagoi in Assam,Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan , Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh . Some are consistent single constituency players such as Kamal Nath who has held his Chindwara seat in Madhya Pradesh since nine terms, but could not enlarge his influence . Presently Congress is in power in Kerala but we are not sure if Omen Chandy could sway the masses owing to the very fact that it was a closely fought elections with CPM losing narrowly.
The leaders are thrust upon from top. Earlier leaders emerged from below; from the people ,during the various movements: non cooperation, civil disobedience, quit India, emergency etc . A plant emerging from the seed in a traditional way . But nowadays we have leaders akin to fully grown plants being uprooted from another environment and planted among the people ( Parliament), constructed like GM crop! Arun Jaitley, Chidambaram, Shashi Tharoor, Manmohan Singh, Jairam Ramesh Mani Shankar Iyer, Smriti Irani are some examples; some may be successful too but they lack the common touch and experience of ‘ hands on’ reality. Jinnah and Ambedkar are two examples of nominated leaders who are being talked about these days. Ambedkar lost Loksabha election when he contested as an independent , he was inducted in Rajya Sabha because of his stature as a legal giant . These two never courted arrest during the freedom struggle , never participated in the freedom struggle, wore suit and tie and negotiated for their community separately with the British. Can we put the above leaders in the category of ‘ E’ leaders?
The question arises if Narendra Modi is an ‘E’ leader or mass leader. He was an organizational man of RSS and BJP and assumed the chiefministership of Gujarat when Keshubhai Patel was removed in the year 2001. He made a place for himself with his administrative acumen the tragic Gujrat riots of 2002 polarized the society in the state and he benefited from it. He is the prime minister today and has attained this position by using ‘E’ platform to the hilt. Is this a new trend? Would ‘E’ leaders dominate the political scene in future? ‘Mann ki baat’ through radio is Modi’s comfort communication style ;uninterrupted , unhindered one way communication. It lacks ‘emotion’, it lacks rapport, it lacks creativity which arises at public platforms . It is not an inspirational delivery motivated and altered by the response of the crowd. The traditional public speech platforms are no more in existence after the tragedy of Rajiv Gandhi , there is buffer of security personnel, but till such time the leader and public are not ‘roohbaru’ ( in front of each other) the communication is not true. Arun jaitley sounded so smart and logical on TV specially during his opposition days , he has been a student leader and his sphere of influence was New Delhi, but he contested Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar last year , he lost. Apparently his ‘E’ leadership style failed to deliver. Even the Marxists are not far behind in the lack mass leaders. Is Prakesh Karat a mass leader? Is Sitaram Yechury a mass leader? Do they have leaders of Jyoti Basu’s stature ? The diminishing of the party has happened where followership ceded ; people to people contact ended. Kejriwal ,despite his flaws has shown the power and magic of mass contact; but you have to sweat and bleed . Who is prepared?
As the corporates are growing the nominated leaders/ ‘E’ leaders are increasing. They can be created on the ‘click’ of a button –TV , Internet ! Mass leaders too have shades. Gandhi and Nehru were true mass leaders but today the leaders are restricted to their region and constituency. Therefore a binding force at National level is missing . Jayalalita is restricted to Tamil Nadu. Sharad Panwar is popular in only certain regions of Maharashtra, Lalu is in parts of Bihar, Mayawati and Mulayam are in UP. The two people who are not identified as belonging to a community are Narendra Modi and Sonia Gandhi, but they have their own limitations.
Lok Sabha members are expected to be rooted to ground, since they are elected directly by the people , they are expected to be mass leaders and frequently raise issues of the people. Rajya Sabha, similar to the ‘house of Lords’ is expected to be the gathering of elders; intellectuals drawn from various walks of life to shape and guide policies . The members are expected to be wise men, neutral and not necessarily supporting all party issues. However over the years there seems to be no difference between the two. The Rajya Sabha members are as vocal and unwise as members of Lok sabha. They stall proceedings frequently. Leaders who are unable to get elected through popular vote try to enter through Rajya sabha route. This has been a major cause of decline of leadership. Mostly arm chair politicians occupy Rajya Sabha. It reached its nadir when Prime minister Manmohan Singh avoided direct vote and preferred to enter parliament through Rajya Sabha.
Finally; I guess that as we move toward more CEO/corporate type functioning the emotional cord ( dialogue) with the masses will detach and a’ corporate cord’ , a firmer control and grip to ensure various compliances such as income tax will be the order. The ‘aadhar’ era will help the rulers. ‘Direct to bank’ policy would be for better accounting and control, but emotional schemes such as MGNREGA , food security will be shunned . The neat and clean leaders ( only physically!!) would not like to muck in the messy mass contact schemes which are labour intensive even if the studies have shown that these are slow but powerful empowerment programmes , perhaps the largest in the world.
We can witness these nominated /’E’ leaders in abundance as spokespersons of the various political parties , hardly anyone is a directly elected member of Parliament , some may be Rajya Sabha members but they have never been grass root workers and have spent the dominant part of their life outside politics, but their confidence level is surprising! Since the time TV has taken a powerful role in opinion making their numbers have swelled. Parties appoint large number of these spokespersons and the changes too are frequent. These people are mostly happy and perhaps suitable for such role only and barely any makes it to the public platform for the real test. They are smart but would sink in the presence of the masses. They can only face TV cameras sitting on cushioned chairs or even sipping coffee/tea at home, make caustic remarks and reveal intricacies of governance. All of them are sound so authoritative but alas; lack responsibility toward the masses!
The BJP spokespersons are Sambit Patra , is from the field of medicine, seen often these days, speaks English with an accent and is US returned. Nalin Kohli another prominent face speaks in English and Hindi and talks like a class monitor and has been in the field of education and corporate. Nirmala Sitharaman is Commerce minister and made a name for herself as a prominent and logical rather too serious a spokesperson during the pre election days , she is a member of Rajya Sabha. Shaina N C is a fashion designer and daughter of Nana Chaudasma who was sheriff of Mumbai. Sudhanshu Trivedi is a PHD in mechanical engineering and speaks both in Hindi and English. Mukhtar Naqvi is the only person with some grassroot experience but he left that long time and prefers the safety of Rajya Sabha rather than the hustle and risk of direct election!
The Congress spokespersons are Sanjay Jha a US returned corporate. C R Kesavan , the great grandson of Rajaji who too is US returned. Anand Sharma a once student leader but now a prominent Rajya Sabha member. Abhishek Manu Singhvi ,senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha member. Interestingly the congress promulgated list has many children of the old congressmen starting from Salman Soz , son of Saifuddin Soz,, sons of Vilas Rao Deshmukh Tarun Gagoi, VN Gadgil. Mr Pavan Varma is the spokesperson of JD(U), he was a diplomat and is the member of Rajya Sabha.
The
indications and parallels are not good. The number of poor in India has
increased with the advent of liberalization ( creation of ‘E’ leaders). The
number of hungry people in India is 194 millions, the highest in the world.
China is second in this race at 133 millions; we are way ahead! The increase in
suicide by farmers ( unheard in past). The surge to meet Rahul by the masses
during his recent padyatras despite his mediocrity are signs that people are missing their
leaders !
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