Monday Musings - Part 1
It’s one of those days when a few
random tweets or blogs create a unifying thread within you to share some
thoughts on a variety of issues but again bound by a common thread – the future
of India & our children.
I was motivated by the following
blogs early in the morning on a Monday.
Now one may wonder what is the common
thread between these blogs. It is the realisation of the truth that the
citizens of India are waking up, that social media inspite of all its
viciousness and negativity is catalysing citizens to look inwards into
themselves, into a mirror and finally that a political & privileged class
can no longer think that they decide the destiny of the country.
These maybe early days yet, the
stirrings of a new born but, yet, a new promise, a new future that hopefully
will make this world a better place for our future generations.
As the last blog bluntly shows the
mirror to us saying that – stop whining at the politicians, start seeing for
what we are as citizens. If we as citizens don’t bother about our country, our
society there is no point in blaming politicians and their network.
In modern management parlance, I saw
this poster at a top Indian multinational engineering group – “The speed of an organisation
is determined by the speed of its leader”.
Funny isn’t it, that every one of us wax
eloquent about the leadership of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, JRD Tata,
Narayan Murthy, Rockfeller, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the hundreds
of others in the business field where they led from the front. Their organisations were identified by them, they
left a strong imprint of themselves on the organisations, they created a vision
and followed it up to success and for all their personal behaviour but, did not
exactly run their organisations like a secular liberal democracy. They preferred
merit over all else, they demanded discipline & team work from their team
and while they listened to diverse opinions, finally decided what they felt was
the best decision. Fortunately, nobody arranges voting to decide how many
within their organisations agreed with their decisions. The markets and
customers decide that. But when it comes to politics and running a country, we
start complaining about strong leaders, about democracy and so on forgetting
that there is we are still the market, the customers and there is something called
elections in which we can participate, vote – but even that we are loath to do.
See also how we the same citizens
blindly accepted the leadership of Gandhi, Nehru, Indira, Churchill, Roosevelt
etc who were by no means the most democratic or their decisions judged by how
many actually voted for them. Lincoln won the election with less than 40% of
the votes and another time by 55%. Lincoln braving all odds ensured that
slavery was abolished inspite of the fact that many supported it then. Nobody
questioned Lincoln, Nehru with the intensity that a leader is today questioned
while a Gandhi refused to lead the country and never fought any elections as I ask
in my blog.
Nobody questions the iron fisted hold
Nehru and later Indira had over the party and the nation and the vision they
decided to establish for India – socialistic democracy with a blend of monarchy.
He won by just 45% votes in the first Lok Sabha elections, yet was widely
accepted by the nation. Even Indira after the emergency in 1975 obtained 35%
votes and the Janata Party won with just 43%. Can we conclude that 35% or maybe
57% of the nation supported the emergency and its horrors ?
Nehru and Indira did many crucial
mistakes for which the nation even today suffers. Yet we eulogise them for
their contribution to nation building. Today, many of us citizens live in a utopian dream world where
we think that only someone with 100% votes is eligible to have the moral right to
take decisions and create a vision. We cannot be more wrong.
In the old days when Kings ruled and
Monarchy prevailed the popular saying was – “Yatha Raja Thatha Praja” – As the
king, so the citizens. Today the same
thing should read as – “Yatha Praja Thatha Raja” – As the citizens, so the
leaders.
Politics and society has changed over
the last few years. The naïve will want to see this as a post 2014 phenomenon. Truth
is that it changed post 2000, slowly but surely. Only thing, we citizens were
not aware of it in real time unlike now due to SM. We did not have a voice
earlier unlike now. I wrote this in 2014.
Globally citizens are sick of the
conventional politician and cynical. When Trump was campaigning, the negative
press and news about him was so wide spread that only an idiot would have
assumed he could win. Similarly, nobody in their right sense of mind would even
think that before the 2014 elections Modi would be nominated for the post, let
alone become PM. Yet both won. If you are a true believer in democracy – accept
it – even if you disagree with them – on some issues. Blind hate and opposition
to every decision will not help democracy or the nation – it will only produce
more leaders who have no stake in anything except their own enrichment. We
citizens will suffer because they then know we citizens have no stake in the
nation and they will play to the gallery of those who will vote for them. That’s
dangerous.
So, it’s time to stop cribbing and
start getting involved in the nation. We can disagree with plans, programs and
leaders – irrespective of what and who they are. But let us not abrogate the
right to be involved. Let us not forget that no nation can move forward with a
unipolar view of society, even if they think they live in a unipolar society. The
world is globalised and whether we like it or not we have to interact with each
other, deal with each other, depend on each other as a human race. Also, even
within the so called unipolar society it is not that harmony is achieved. Human
beings will find other ways to find a difference, a diversity within themselves
and still fight, oppose each other.
Each of the blogs linked above teach
us about accepting diversity, accepting mistakes, understanding the fault lines
in the society and most importantly – getting involved as citizens – beyond voting
– but into nation building and being the change we demand from others.
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