THE AGE OF

LEADERSHIP

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 peoples 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 partys 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 Modis 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 Basus
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 !