By Patricia Mukhim
The votes for the presidential polls have been cast. The question uppermost today in the minds of Congressmen and women today is – who will be No 2 in the UPA cabinet. Yet again the media is pummelling Rahul Gandhi about whether he will play a pro-active role in the party and government. Ever since the straight talking senior UPA minister Salman Khurshid commented on Rahul’s cameo role in the Congress and government the media has been speculating on the political future of the Nehru-Gandhi scion. In the Congress, there is a reverential silence when people utter the name of Sonia Gandhi or her son Rahul. Inner party reflection is only about non-issues. If the media does not ask uncomfortable questions the Congress would prefer to seal its lips. The larger issue of leadership in the Congress party and government remains unresolved. No one has the spine to raise such matters. The last time PA Sangma and others did so they became pariahs. The Congress party actually has no courage exorcise its own demons. Party followers have to defend their leaders even when they know the party is in the dog-house. It’s a blind following which is the anti-thesis of good follower-ship. To say the least, it is unhealthy.
But if the Congress is a lame duck the opposition is not on top of things either. The BJP which continues to be the torch-bearer of the NDA is in tatters. The NDA could not even find a consensus candidate for the presidential post. PA Sangma became a sort of face-saver for the alliance. And Nitish Kumar, a prominent member of the NDA cocked a snook at the choice. He decided he would support the UPA candidate. Nitish Kumar is of course charting a new course in politics.
Then you have Mamata Banerjee a congenital UPA baiter despite being part of it. She played a cat and mouse game and kept the UPA on tenterhooks. These inherent contradictions within the national alliances have had very adverse consequences on the way this country is run. The economy is teetering. Times Magazine has labelled prime minister, Manmohan Singh an underachiever. Not that the ‘desi’ media has not done this earlier. Except that when the international media does it we feel a national shame.
The dilemma then is what happens in 2014? Like someone said the BJP seems to be banking on their poster boy Narendra Modi as the next prime minister. But whether the BJP-led NDA will be able to cobble up a decent number remains a question mark. The UPA-II, is likely to suffer from the anti-incumbency factor. With inflation touching the sky; governance at a stand-still and rising unemployment due to the flagging economy, India is no longer confident about its growth rate although no one will tell us the truth. Barack Obama’s comment that India should pull up its socks on FDI and retail or face a downturn, looks like some sort of hegemonic warning. That India took exception to Obama’s comment does not change things. Our economy needs a boost; no one needs to tell us that. But even if some tweaking happens, it will take time before the economy recovers. Meanwhile for the next three years or so the repercussions of a badly managed economy will befall this nation. When growth slows everything else also stagnates.
India faces an acute problem of political leadership. At the moment Sonia Gandhi is the real leader. The reason I say this is because every plan articulated even by the best brains in this country has to have her endorsement or it will not pass muster. There are two power centres in India today. One is the UPA; the other the NAC. The latter has a very strong influence on the former. Of late some of the more reasonable members of the NAC have completed their terms and have been replaced by others who are more pliable. You wonder what the role of the NAC is when you already have a Planning Commission. Both are unconstitutional bodies but wield considerable power. Is this good for Indian democracy? We cannot expect a straight answer on this from the Congress. Sonia Gandhi’s wish is a command for every Congressman/woman.
So far I have highlighted the problem of leadership. But what of us as followers? Leaders are leaders because someone follows them. These days with Twitter and Facebook there are no dearth of followers who wish to read your ideology and politics. But this is an amorphous following. The social network types prefer to remain online followers. They will not come down to earth to engage with real issues if you call them. They feel safer to engage with the virtual world. But in a democracy you also require followers on the ground that will make a noise, create their own constituency and do their advocacy. Where are those selfless followers? Today the only followers are those whose constant unstated refrain is, “what’s in it for me?”
David Brooks the regular columnist for The New York Times recently wrote an article called “The Follower Problem.” According to Brooks the ideologies and politics of the leaders of today do not resonate with their followers. Hence they move tangentially. Today’s leaders, Brooks says do not wield just authority. Hence people feel victimised. Consequently the victims of power enjoy a higher moral status than those who wield power. And this is because leaders have become oppressive and are alienated from the people. They reside in a different plane which is not in sync with the stark realities on the ground such as poverty which hits people in the face.
Brooks says there is a general disdain for political leaders across the globe. We see that in our own backyards. There is not a single person amongst the 60 representatives that we do not have something against. So what do we do? We quickly go to alternative ‘leaders’ we have not elected, but who hold office in their organisations by virtue of being elected by a small group. The only time we invite ministers or politician is when we want publicity or money or both. When a politician addresses a meeting the media invariably follow him and faithfully vomit out what he/she says in the evening. So it forms the content of our newspaper and television news. But do we take seriously what that leader says? Doubtful. The first thing we do is measure the person’s speech to his/her personal and professional conduct and immediately find a disconnect. Brooks say, “It’s hard in this frame of mind to define and celebrate greatness, to hold up others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves.
At one time universities inculcated a culture that is adversarial to the establishment but based on sound logic. Today the intellectual community is either silent or there is ‘mass adversarial cynicism.’ Our distrust for authority comes from our conjecture that the ruling elite are always hiding something from us; that public servants are self-serving. Our favourite pastime is character assassination. This attitude, Brooks say makes people end up with ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movements which want to dispense with authority altogether.
I am in agreement with David Brooks when he says, “Democratic follower-ship is built on a series of paradoxes: that we are all created equal but that we also elevate those who are extraordinary; that we choose our leaders but also have to defer to them and trust their discretion; that we’re proud individuals but only really thrive as a group, organized and led by just authority.”
We in India have both a leadership and follower-ship problem. We distrust our institutions because they have failed us. Also cynicism has become part of our mental make-up. In his memoir, “At Ease,” Eisenhower advises thus: “Always try to associate yourself with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.”
The problem then is two-fold. To have good leaders we must have good followers -able to recognize just authority, admire it, be grateful for it and emulate it.
Our problem today is that we have too many self-proclaimed leaders with not enough wisdom or humility to lead us to a better future. The reason? Politics is their sole goal! There are too few committed civil society leaders.