Skip to main content

Wanted Leaders


The first time Delhi gave its mandate, though a cautious one, to Mr Arvind Kejriwal, he let down the people by abandoning his responsibility.  Delhi not only forgave him but also extended the mandate with a shocking majority.  Once again, his party seems to be letting down the people.

The bickering going on within the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is not at all entertaining for the people of Delhi.  Delhiites had huge expectations from the Party as proved by the votes given to it.  Even before the honeymoon is over the partners have started bloating their egos.  What has happened already is a terrible let-down for Delhiites as well as for many other people who had hoped for a better alternative in the party. 

The situation in Indian politics vis-a-vis leadership is rather pathetic.  Mr Narendra Modi has good leadership skills but is too parochial in thinking to be the leader of a country like India which has more diversity than his imagination can absorb.  His emergence as the Prime Minister led to many unholy attacks on religious places, on people’s identities in the name of ghar vapsi, and on the very history of the nation itself.  In all probability, Mr Modi will leave the nation twisted and distorted in many ways by the time his tenure as PM is over.  He may, however, bring in more economic development at least to one section of the population: the section that is capable of competing in the system of Modian laissez-faire. Some of the others may learn to tap the so-called trickle-down benefits.  Those who are not fit to deal with the system have no right to survive.  Even their food will be taken away from them in the name of certain holy cows.

The crown prince of the Dynasty is absconding when he is needed the most. He chose to sit under some Bodhi tree in introspection and contemplation when his presence in the Lok Sabha was very important.  Will he emerge as an enlightened Platonic philosopher-prince or as an avatar of the mystical Buddha?  We don’t know.  From whatever we have seen so far, we may deduce that politics does not seem to be his cup of tea.

A country with one-seventh of the world’s population in it does not have at least a handful of efficient and humane leaders!  This is a tragic situation indeed.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...

Blasphemy in Brahma Muhurta

Dr T S Shyam Kumar: courtesy Pachakuthira At Brahma muhurta this morning, I was reading something profane if not blasphemous. Well, I didn’t even know until I was reading it that Brahma muhurta was the most auspicious time of the day and that it lay in the fourth yama of the night – that is, from 3 am to 6 am approx. Sleep eludes me these days in this period of the night. I wake up in the Brahma muhurta and then I am unable to go to sleep, for some reason beyond me. So I pick up my mobile phone and go to Magzter App. The magazine I chose to read this morning happened to be a Malayalam literary periodical, Pachakuthira . An interview with Dr T S Syamkumar, Sanskrit scholar and teacher as well as author of many books and recipient of some notable awards, caught my attention. This interview was something unique for me and one of the many things I learnt from it is that Brahma muhurta is the auspicious period that begins roughly 1 hour 36 minutes before sunrise and lasts for about...

I’m Alive

Illustration by Copilot Designer How do you prove to anyone that you’re alive? Go and stand in front of the person and declare, “I’m Tom, Shyam or Hari”? No, that won’t work in India. Let me share my personal experience. It’s as absurd as the plight of Kafka’s protagonist in The Castle. A land surveyor is summoned for duty, only to be told that the mere fact a land surveyor was summoned does not prove he is that land surveyor though he has the appointment letter with him. I received a mail from the Life Insurance Corporation of India [LIC] that I should prove my existence in order to continue receiving my annuity on the sum I had invested with them five years ago. They’re only paying the interest on the sum I have given them. They’re not doing me any charity. Yet they want me to prove to them that I am still alive in order to continue getting the annual amount they are obligated to pay me. This is India. LIC is a government undertaking. If I don’t follow their injunction, I wil...