Leadership crisis in India - Afterword

I have been away from the blog for a fairly long time because of my involvement in the organizing of a seminar for my department. I therefore apologize to anyone who has been reading and following my blog. I also have to apologize because I am continuing my thoughts on something that I believed I had closed when I said "Leadership crisis in India - Conclusion". I have since, realized that a number of events have taken place and those have drawn my attention to the way in which leadership operates in this country. I have been very proud of my country and defended it with evangelical zeal when anyone spoke against it. My standard line of defence was that nothing is perfect and therefore there is no necessity to castigate India because there are a few things about it that are not palatable. However, in the last few days even this patriot in me has been jolted by some happenings. The first thing that shocked me was the fact that school children are now being "drafted" into political campaigns. In the quest for a separate Telangana the leadership of the cause has decided not to spare even children who certainly do not have any proper understanding of the issue. In fact, let me say that they do not have the ability to understand such complex issues yet. The part that puts fear in me is that this either suggests a complete bankruptcy of ideas on the part of the political leadership that is presently espousing this cause or more dangerously it is an attempt to indoctrinate young people even before they are out of schools, in some instances out of primary and secondary schools. This to me presents the possibility of having generations of people who are akin to programmed robots and whose functioning would be based in automaton conformity. This act therefore is not just bad strategy but bad ethics as well.

The trends that this country is witnessing are those which should set alarm bells off in any mind that is capable of cogitation. While the Telangana issue itself is one that represents a problematique (a source of many problems of a certain nature) it is now being compounded by the leadership of the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Samithi (MNS) in Mumbai and Maharashtra. The various different Thackaray scions seem to want to keep Mumbai to themselves and drive everyone who is not a Maharashtrian out or keep them as second rate citizens, an effort similar to what the protagonists of Telangana are trying to do with Hyderabad.The difference is only in the degrees of equivocation but the intention is the same in both instances. I can recollect that a little over fifteen years ago Bangalore witnessed riots because the Kannadigas desired to throw out Tamilians from their city. All these developments are not really those that are the outcome of the desires of citizens but almost necessarily political machinations to create new constituencies and exploit them as vote banks. In support of such leaderships are "academicians" who label India a 'multi-national' State, a most terrible and cynical description of what India is.

Indian Nationalism that was once carefully built and nurtured by patriots during the Indian Independence Movement is today threatened by fissiparous tendencies that are based in an increasing parochialism. It is convenient to say that this is an unnecessarily alarmist interpretation of the present. My response to that is that those who do not learn from history are only condemning the future generations to a life that they do not deserve. The sacrifices of the past are today meaningless and are being mocked at by the present. In my considered opinion the future deserves better.

I had erroneously believed that I had closed the discussion on leadership crisis by naming the second part of the post as 'conclusion'. I had not realized that there was much more to say. That realization has dawned upon as I started writing this bit. I therefore have decided to re-open the issue and perhaps what I have now titled 'afterword' will have to be seen as 'foreword'. In the near future I shall start writing about what ails the leadership of this country and how that is destroying the fabric of this country by targeting all forms of social constructions including education. As someone involved with education it is my responsibility to continue to write against these unfortunate tendencies that are plaguing India. From my next post onwards I shall restart my thoughts on leadership crisis in India.