Leadership Beyond Corona

Sometime in March, I began to question if Corona will change the way Behavourial Science scripts new chapters. Chapters that may change the way how the science is applied to understand and relate to people and societies. 

Thinking more about how Corona may impact our public behaviour, I began to recognise that we may relate to people based on so many newer factors. The gentleman or the lady were more likely to be noticed in the public washrooms for their nobility in the way they use the tap at the washbasin, or, by the way they respect others’ rights to their spaces, as well. The high notes of pedigreed public behaviour may be used as a benchmark to judge people in general. 

That is when I developed a presentation: Success Beyond Corona - Responsible Leadership; and, later spoke how Corona may change the way leadership is understood or appreciated. Interacting with the industry communities, and, the academicia, I did not quite realise the depth of the newer public order is likely to develop, as Covid impacts more people, all of 2020. 

Are we civilised enough to respect individuality at another level altogether? The grace will now definitely be in respecting the privacy of space for someone sitting next to you on the dining table. The nails, the cuffs, the sneeze or the hiccups will be observed so much more. The restaurants may change the way seating is spaced around a table. The expansive spacing will so disrupt the budgets of every business where people come together. That's the economics of it. However, how on earth do I make my guest at home feel cosier over a meal? 

Should the more welcoming dining table at my home be 10x6 feet for only six to seat? Would my hospitality be more welcomed if I do not invite more than a couple of friends over an evening so that a sofa is left between two persons in my living room? 

As we go along the apprehensions are sharply turning real. I am getting more definitive that we are not too loud in our imaginations. As more people remain uncertain how soon Corona will go out of our lives, its imprints continue to make us fear and be anxious about public behaviour. 

Sensitivity towards people has suddenly emerged as a responsibility. A growing social responsibility. 

People are not likely to be limited to judge leadership based on initiatives, achievements or accomplishments. Leaders are likely to be viewed a whole lot more in the way they maintain protocols in the public. Not necessarily on the go, over the phone and the video conferences as well. 

Are they hygienic enough? A very personal sense of responsible citizenship is likely to be under the scanner by people, publicly. 

Do they understand that I have my rights to keep my hands in my pocket? Do they realise that exchanging visiting cards may not be the most responsible practice? 

How distant is polite? How erudite is someone over the video conference? 

The biggest challenge of it all, how do I reach out, being at a distance? 

They are just a few of the entirely new dimensions of the post Covid public behaviour. 

The witness to the impacts of Corona will be more real, when we get back to normal lives as we lived until 2019. People may have outlived the reassurance of a warm handshake. They have not been hugged enough by people outside their families. People have not met people enough. How do you address such people so distant from humanity for so long a time?

That is when I am likely to see ways of breaking the barriers of emotions, while I respect strictly the barriers of discipline. How testing will the experience be? 

How do I reflect warmth, trust and confidence amidst isolated environments? Would I find the body language of people whom I have known closer, now incomprehensible, when I meet them, like I met them before March? 

Human sensitivities long lost in the race for leadership positions seems to have suddenly awakened. From the neighbour to the grocer, to the staff at work, or the customer, they are all now worthy of respectful distance with a sense of privacy. 

In keeping the distance, the real leaders will emerge to inspire. To set examples. Raise the levels of human behaviour. As the outstanding will be observed, respected and trusted. 

Ram Ray. Much Pearls. To Many.

Ram Ray.

Much Pearls. To Many.

At an impressionable age, encountering a boss with distinguished impressions was my biggest challenge when I moved from Ernst & Young to Response. The responsibility to establish a technology driven finance management system in 1984, was the first ever, I assume, in an advertising agency in India. The task was a much less challenge, however.

With the background of transforming accounting systems from the traditional book keeping into a digitised information system for large corporations such as American Express Travel Services, Bata or even the Indian enterprise like the Hindustan Motors or Orient Paper and Industries, I needed to understand the transactional flow in an advertising business and apply that to the technology available. 

Only Ram Ray could explain the financial transactional flow as I was the first accounting employee. He offered a Mac, and a senior Informational Technology Consultant, Mr Bedi who would design the software, as my only support.

The environment at Response was inspiring. Almost everyone wanted to develop the best work. If they didn’t, Ram Ray was mammothly present with his roving eyes in finding them circumvent the his standards - usually higher than the best standards. His eyes would zoom into the pantry and the work desks as much.

In my interactions, I guess he knew he was not too sharp in the financial discipline, much like most advertising managers, however legendary they may be. Very soon I had a visiting Consultant, followed by a senior finance professional. 

In under a year the system was established, reducing my work to allocating expense heads to the cash flow. At the same time, advertising had begun to inspire me as a career. 

Communication was my greatest shortcoming. Yet it was communication that drove the spirit in me. 

Ram Ray’s virtue of benevolence among his several unique traits, worked in my favour, when he agreed to give me an opportunity to move over to Account management from Accounting management. He asked me as bluntly as he would address a rookie, “What if you fail as an Account Manager?”. I had worked upon the courage to answer that as bluntly: I will quit Response. His next question: “How long should the test be?”. I was a bit clever there, when I said, working under him it should be just a quarter, yet I hoped six months was not a big ask. 

That is when Ram Ray caught me in a zone that belonged to him entirely. It was coincidental that I was the first Account Manager as well at Response. Until then, it was just him and others from Media, Creative or Research seconding, or supporting him.

Cruelty of sorts was heaped upon me as he begun to review my expressions of the conversations in a meeting, as a formal Service Report. 

Six months later, I was not asked to leave, even though a few other Account Managers had joined. But I was the only slave between the clients and Ram Ray. I was crushed like keema in rolls that Calcuttans enjoyed for a meal or between meals; and, Ram Ray could enjoy anytime of the day. 

The greater I was crushed, the deeper was my determination to sneak into what made him a giant. 

I continue my attempts to express better, a learning I grant him alone as the source of my inspiration. Minimal words, better expressed, as I call that practice. Express to the individual alone you relate to, never as a standard narrative. I am very certain he would dump most of what I write or say, as no where close to linguistically acceptable English. 

I would not bother. And, continue. He was never explicit, yet he taught me hard, not to allow appreciations or ridicule come in the way of what you are committed to doing, or dedicated to learning uniquely.

I got over the hangover of being impressive, or be impressed. Let those virtues be in the passing. The inner being is better preserved if the impressions, or the expectations based on impressions are left behind as garbage in the bin, while the pursuit to get better lives. 

So, Ram Ray, in his own style, never concluded if I was a good enough Account Manager. Pushing me to find if I believed so. 

Inspired by his style of taking a larger leap to conclude if anything was good enough, I sought interviews, outside Response, and Calcutta. When I concluded with an opportunity with HTA, Delhi, I knew Ram Ray had made me what, like most of his trainees, I would have expected from my term with him. 

He stayed in touch. He would often Inbox a few articles, or, have a quick chat. I also found his recommendation on my LinkedIn profile, without asking.

I knew he was not keeping well. Yet I was selfish enough to be proud that I was not a sundry in his list, whenever I found his notes in my Inbox. They stopped about six months ago. I sensed the Master will not be longer to reassure me that I existed in his mind.

I have met legends, or known them. I cannot relate to him as another legend or a star. He left a distinct mark on people he knew. In a way of his own. Distinct and distinguishable. 

All that is Manly isn’t quite Wisely

All that is Manly isn’t quite Wisely.

Man is a man. A woman is just a woman. A vast majority of children, both boys and girls grow up amidst the sexual discrimination. Boys will be boys. Girls are girlish.

The boys strive for the more powerful man. The girls begin to contest the idea of men as superior. Most often the boys don’t know if men need to be gentlemanly. And the girls may begin to show what’s manly in them.

It’s a saga that diverts the attention from the very normal learning curve of the human growth. 

One hears often parents say very proudly, at least in the context of Indian families, that they brought up the girls as well as the boys. That they gave the girls the same opportunities. Oh come on! That in itself is a statement loaded with sexual discrimination. A genuine parent would let the child be - girl or the boy. They may educate them about the prevalent discrimination, how to be conscious about them, how to address them. Can they sow the seed of the difference and make all the efforts to be just and fair? The seed of manliness is cultivated by the attitude itself.

Growing up against the benchmark of the conceptual manhood in itself is derogatory to the human individual. Building boundaries that destroy the natural instinct to grown and evolve individually. 

Education is compromised. Behaviours are compromised. Disciplines are compromised. Personalities are compromised. The concept of manliness is such a curse on the humanity.

Eventually it may be too late for people to recognise how silly, stupid, even inhuman the strife for being the man is. More often it is too late to change the perspective in order to be just simple human beings. Yet the day one comes out of it, their path of self evolvement opens up. So what if it is too late in life?

It is not a social phenomenon in a less developed world. Even the most evolved societies may be fraught by the perceptual order of such a waste of human reserves.

Is it really such a challenge to recognise a being as an individual, irrespective of their sex? What if a boy is seen for what the boy is. And the girl for what she is. At least they would know they are an individual in a vast world. And they would be responsible only if they engage their energies in building the individual driven by their aspirations to be.

Perceiving the human, based on skills, talents, behaviours, outlook or responsiveness is not quite an uninspiring aspiration. 

If we respect humanity as the supreme, how does manliness come in between? 

Do we perceive humanity to be devoid of aspirations, imaginations, inspirations or ambitions? If it is humane to have aspirations, imaginations, inspirations or ambitions, how does being manly change its paradigm? 

Unless humanly is considered too soft for the worldly challenges. Isn’t manliness a facet of the  humanity? Do I conclude that manliness as a variance of humanity is not good enough to address the worldly challenges? If it is not, do we need bulls? Or wolves? Such a manly aspiration cannot get uglier. 

Preparing to face such a horribly deranged world, developing one’s skills, honing up our talents to resolve the inhuman world around in itself breeds inhumanity. Who is that man who built such an image of the world? Who is that man who has distracted people from building simple human skills to resolve simple human issues? 

Is it really a man’s doing? Or, the surreal image of men that has hounded men and women to be? Or is it a subconscious in the human mind to be the animal they grew out of?

If the women suffer because there is an overdose of manliness, its the men who kill themselves in being the man they are ought to be. 

It is often hilarious to see the men suffering from the manly ideologue. At work. At social get togethers. On the plane or the train. In general, on the streets. The supremacy felt by them makes them appear part of a zoo that has drained the free will out of their real human selves. 

It is not, however, as hilarious to see women display their concept of manliness. It is not hilarious because it is mostly a safety belt they wear assuming the malady of manliness being supreme. 

Godliness is a weakness often because it attempts to build another kind of safety belt against fears or apprehensions. Is manliness any different? 

Fears or apprehensions can be faced with skills, wisdom or cultivated talents. Walking around with the cloak, at least one of manliness is a laughing stock at best. 

#MeToo, #WeToo, #WeTwo.

#MeToo, #WeToo, #WeTwo.

As the #MeToo moment builds, one fears if it will have its way as a social movement. It is not because it is skewed. Not because it’s just urban. Not because it’s old. Not also because it is not legally tenable. The fear is if it will be able to cross over the barriers that will be built by people in position. 

After all it is the people, rather men, in position who gave the intrusive misbehaviour with women a pattern, almost as a right to be.

When men and women come together to work, it makes the workplace encouraging, inspiring, and promising, at least at the entry levels. People become more conscious about how they dress, they present or cultivate a conversation. All that is vital in promoting skills, competence and aspirations.

Just then, however, women begin to feel being watched. The story takes a sudden disillusioned turn for them. They are made to be conscious about what they wear, not from the perspective of what will make them comfortable or make their personalities more noticeable. They are imposed to be cautious of what could attract a pinch, or an attention that has no space in the professional enhancement, or an image that will be cast against the various sexual benchmarks. 

Why must a woman face that challenge? She takes to work because she wants to give her skills a professional direction, earn a position worthy of her competence. Just as men do. Why should she face challenges that is beyond professional expectations? Why should she be engaging her energies in thinking on ways to encounter the various men in various ways? Why should keeping her body safe, secure and guarded from intrusive indulgence become a daily engagement in her professional life? Isn’t this an extraordinary challenge imposed on her? 

Should this culture continue undisturbed or unchallenged? These are questions that must get due response. And, it can’t happen in a Court of law. It simply cannot be put to a legal trial for redressal. It is a fight for the rights that women are justified in asking. 

It does not matter if a few mighty names feel defamed. It should not concern if the allegations are not substantiated by facts or evidences. It should not disseminate the cause if a few are frivolous. It has been a continuing exploitation. Even if it was consensual at the time of its occurrence. 

There are just two sides of the instances. Either a man and a woman came together beyond their professional obligations to be physically engaged, and felt cheated; or, the man designed an occasion to make her succumb. Both can be contested legally, and it is a choice of the individuals to choose the course.

The issue is deeper: the growing phenomenon of indulging men, specially those in a position to impact professional aspirations. 

The context that has been brushed under the carpet is: She ‘never’ wanted. He wanted it ‘no matter how.’

That she never wanted it, and he wanted it no matter how, is a cult that has evolved since about the 1970s as workplaces broke the gender barriers. The men continued to cultivate the craft while the women were coerced to conceive better ideas to evade. 

Having worked for long in the advertising, media and cinema industries, I stand by my conviction that men have been exploitative. Women have had a tough, humiliating and suffocating time navigating their professional aspirations. 

More, this trend has set such an established mistrust and faith in men. Are men proud of that position? Do men enjoy anchoring women as ‘safer’ friends because that is one of the ways women can get away from the menace? Do men feel comfortable as they go through a series of tests before they can be accepted to meet? Do men not feel insulted if the woman opposite her is more absorbed in noticing where their eyes go, or how she sits?

It is a delightfully stimulating experience for a man and a woman, as colleagues, spend an hour or so in not so matter of fact a conversation. Go for a movie or a play or a walk together, despite their status as married or engaged. It is unreal to conceive that charms do not work between a man and a woman when they are professionally related. Man to a man, or a woman to a woman is another level of a conversation. The man -woman conversation is endowed with dimensions that encourage individual flair and charm.

Once when a lady client and I, as her service manager, would never agree professionally, my boss and hers secretly planned to send us both on a work assignment to Mumbai for a week. When we returned, we were both taking agreeable views on most issues. 

Sharing a cab, having breakfast together in the hotel lobby, trying new restaurants for dinner, or taking a break for coffee together helped us both understand one another. Yes that was as good as dating but both knew that we did not attract one another. Yet we were both conscious of striking a rapport. We returned more agreeable professionally.

Such is the power of man and a woman working together, without indulgence. A relationship evolving out of this is a private issue. To believe that an engaging interaction between a man and a woman must conclude in some physical relationship is archaic and medieval. To impose the physical dimension is nothing less than a crime. 

Of course it is a crime when a man intrudes into the private space of a woman despite her reservations. The crime, however, cannot be redressed in a Court of law. 

Just as the freedom of nations from monarchy was not fought in Courts, the #MeToo campaign will lose its significance if it is given a legal direction. The battle must be fought by a compelling voice. A voice that will give freedom, respect and dignity for women as individuals. 

There will be women who will hesitate to share. There will also be women who will use this as an opportunity. The momentum that the #MeToo is building must not lose its course. It will conclude only when men begin to accept them as individuals with their personal choices as their exclusive rights. It does not matter if this does not resurrect the larger cause of the prejudices faced by the women across the nation. As someone commented that the freedom movement in India began at the levels of the intellectual urban, inspiring others to acknowledge freedom as a human necessity.

The Government will quite naturally form committees or forums to address the issues. Lawyers will be willing to offer legal help. That is their job. Such a solution will dissipate the impact of the movement, not enable the change that is expected. 

The movement requires a social direction only. Mobilise people. Make it engaging. Participative and voiced. The issue can be truly addressed if it finds solidarity from across professions, by men and women equally. As it stirs the women to be responsible for the future women, it must stir the men to think hard. Think what the men can do to establish trust and respect in women. How men can inspire themselves to see women as individuals. That women’s personalities are based on skills, competence and intellect, as variable as the men possess. 

Of course it will take time for the dynamics to change as the mutual respect, trust and dignity never got established. Perceptions, judgements, fears, doubts, insecurities and mistrust have shadowed what could induce the romance between individuals of contrary genders. The dynamics ought to revolve around its potential to enhance professional skills, individual capacities, and, further trust, faith and respect between the individuals. 

Can we expect #MeToo transform into #WeTwo?

Fight for Freedom between the Rights and the Might

Fight for Freedom between the Rights and the Might

The freedom of India was never limited to the Sovereign Republic governed by a Constitution that lends justice, rights, and equality to its people through a parliamentary democratic process. 

To the contrary, August 15, 1947 led India from the might of the British to a fight for rights that brewed within; across generations and over centuries. Except for this time, the craving for rights and liberties was not in bits and pieces, across various segments and regions but got consolidated in the Union of India. 

 It might be naive to assume that the mass participation in the Freedom movement would have concluded on the very day of Independence. However, those who might have assumed that, might have also been naive to assume that the rights of Muslims would be honoured, when a large segment of people was considerably absolutely sure about the idea of a nation founded on the principles of its cultural civilization, rather than a mere succession from the British administration. They would, in fact, have been naiver to believe that any concept or idea of a new India will further the idea of liberation, as multiple groups of underprivileged people would want to be an equal stakeholder in the new demographics. 

The people who formed the new India carried ageless grievances against exploitation, whether before a foreign invasion or after that. Was it, therefore, a wiser choice for the Indian leadership to harness upon the Hindu-Muslim divide in a way that the other multiple diversities do not seek liberation instantaneously? As the incidents of the past 70 years reflect in the sub-continent’s history, the yearning for liberation spread wider to several other communities beyond the Hindu-Muslim. Although leaders in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have continued to keep the challenges on the periphery of the Hindu and Muslim, the foundation for the partition of British India, they have messed up its simpler differences, bringing in some ugly and unworthy dimensions of grievances. However aggressively they may have pursued the cause, whether, in India or Pakistan, they could not subvert the seeking of equality by a Bengali Pakistan subdued by the Punjabi Pakistan. The Hindu Muslim narrative is so frivolous in comparison to the idea of liberation fostered by Gandhi, developing successively among the people of this region.

The Hindu-Muslim divide did not quite reflect the division at the leadership levels. At the leadership levels, they were more inclined towards peaceful coexistence with the view to expand the spirit of freedom or liberty across the various communities as propounded by Gandhi, their ideal.  A significantly strong segment within were deliberate to see the dream of a consolidated nation based on its heritage, the way it existed before the foreign invasion using Hindu as its foundation. They were convinced that the social diversities would merge to identify with the Hindu philosophy. After all, if they could be inclusive in an Islamic, Moghul or the British rule, why would they resist the transformation of a more at home, Hindu heritage. That is when the Muslim would have questioned their faith in the ideas of India underlying the succession plans. They may have doubted the idealistic aspirations of Gandhi but feared more the threats of ideological Hinduism. 

The democratic transition of India met with its first expression of wanting equality in the seeking of Pakistan. It was also an expression of the will enforced by Gandhi to place human liberation above all. Gandhi’s idea of independence could not have prospered in an environment of fear and apprehension. It is therefore realistic to accept the India - Pakistan as an eventuality when a substantially large segment within the nation dreamt passionately for the return of the Hindu civilisation, against a whole new demographic in the modern world. 

The dream of a nation founded on the cultural affiliations of an old civilisation continues. However, the seeds that Gandhi had shown in seeking human liberation exists at the level of an individual, that is much deeper, and cultivates beyond identities with religion, culture or region. It asks for freedom from practices, from cults, from the ethos that had left a geography completely isolated from the rest of the world. 

The cultural transformations will continue in India as the people have rightfully adapted ways that were more convenient, advanced or evolving among the Portuguese, Islam, the British, the Jews or the Persians. That is how even the Hindus evolving, embracing new ideas has never been alien to this land. 

But the idea of Gandhi is stronger, more subtle and deeper. It has forced the people to realise how the liberation of people can transform their potential. People have witnessed how the leaders from India have been honoured by the worldwide communities, not based on who they are, or how they qualify to be recognised, but because they represent the world’s largest democracy, a sixth of people in the world.

As people continue to seek their stakes in the democracy, they are likely to emerge speculating if they are fully endowed with the privileges that the State guarantees.  The barriers between the ruled and the ruler at the various micro levels exist deep and strong. They cannot stay in Gandhi’s India. It will be realistic to assume that the process is long and challenging. It is evolving as well in following the never-so-staid Gandhi. The emergence of Patels or the Savarns is simply just another seeking of rights, justice, and opportunities. That, however, will not be part of 2017 calender. 2018 will bring more. 2022 will inspire more. Yet another may emerge in 2050. Gandhi’s ideas will continue to imaginatively and suitably anchored well until 2200. We are after all amidst 1.3 billion people who have seen a light that left human needs of dignity, pride and respects unattended for over centuries. 

Whether one likes it or not, wants it or not, loves it or not, lives it or not, an Indian cannot ignore facing the challenge, so well established now, to further the rights, justice, and liberties as a free citizen of India. The foreign rule was just a period of time in the history of this region. Ramayana, Mahabharata, Geeta or Kabir, Rahiman, Tulsidas contain elaborate inspiring actions that attempted to celebrate human values over discriminations. 

Until the arrival of Gandhi, the freedom fighters in India struggled between philosophical ideologies of scholars or manifestations of rebellion by passionate revolutionists. 

Gandhi, instead, engaged what he saw in the more evolved European culture, of negotiations, debates and persuasive arguments based on law and justice amidst the military fervour of the time. 

One of the reasons why Gandhi caught the fancy of the Western world was that he put to practice what some perceived as a possibility; a way to negotiate politically without military intervention. It was equally fanciful to India. Seeking peace this way stood genetically as the most trusted faith among the Indian people. However, seeing peace accomplish victory over an authoritarian rule was inconceivable to most at a time when the military had become such a champion for political leadership worldwide.

Yet Gandhi had a plan based on a genuine and trusted experiment. In that plan, the will to seek rights and justice from those in a position to grant, transformed into an essential expression for the masses; and, that was not to stop with the Independence of India, perhaps begin from the day when the rights to be an Independent nation was granted. 

Peaceful negotiations, peaceful protests, expression of a contrary view, with an intent to establish a dialogue became credible enough for the British to note and listen. No wonder then that a large number of Indians educated in Europe got inspired by using the more mature way of engaging the power of people in seeking justice. They began to trust the efficacy of a plan that demonstrated the power of resolute will over the powers of a Government. 

The rebellion that was sporadic or nomadic, turned just, fair and equitable. It expanded across the nation engaging spirited participation. It was dramatic, romantic and surreal. Did that then stir fear among the traditional satraps, leaders or royals? Or did several other leaders found that foreign to their native skills and political crafts? Irrespective, they had no choice against Gandhi. Of course, they could alienate, or hope for another time when their own wisdom takes over. That too was right as these contrary views turned into foundations for democratic contests of ideas or ideologies. 

At another level, Gandhi’s ideologies threatened the traditional hierarchies of community leaderships across the varied and diverse regions, as most were inadequately skilled to retain the power structures against a growing aware public. The traditional leaderships never reconciled to the idea of the man on the streets to seek more than their share of bread and butter. 

Successively, as the awareness of equality and justice inspired a cross-section of people, the feudal Indian society began to cultivate insecurities. As the rationale for the rights of underprivileged became just, one could not deny that the privileged becoming insecure would also breed coming together to seek justice. 

Whether the struggle for social justice converted successfully into political power in form of Karunanidhi, NT Rama Rao, Jyoti Basu, Lalu Prasad or Mayawati, the levels at which people seek social justice remains unexpressed yet. Reservations based on castes is just one among the several ways the political leadership will have to deal with the challenge that will evolve more and longer. Sheltering the insecurities of the privileged communities has just begun to be a potential new found human cause.

Of course, the more privileged will be threatened. And also, those who have become more privileged since. Nationalistic politics is never a long-term resolve against a society that is still to experience freedom and justice. It is neither Secular ideologies that can face the true challenge because secularity sees just one of the several layers of diversities. Nor is economic prosperity a way to address a Naga feeling insecure in Delhi or a Bihari being found unwanted in Maharashtra, just as a Tamil being out of place in Haryana. 

Proverbial arguments, political ideologies of the Left, Right or Moderate and the legislation will perhaps require evolving more imaginatively. The highest ideals of social justice, not described or narrated by Gandhi, but gently stimulated among the masses of India will scale up against the changing times. 

It will be unkind to consider Gandhi, a crusader for the underprivileged, as his foundation of equality of rights, human justice, and liberty never excluded the educated, the rich, the powerful or the old King. The churn may be more visible at the levels of a Dalit, farmers or people deprived of the basic necessities, the Indian inspired enough to enjoy the rights of a free citizen of a country committed to providing opportunities for growth, advancement and pride exists at every level. They may not be as forthcoming, willing to demonstrate or demand, but they will seek and would like to be addressed. 

Those who fear the challenges may rather take a back seat than throw in quick-fix sprinklers to delay the urge. India needs smarter, agile and imaginative political leadership to carry forward the dreams of Gandhi, as they continue to come alive in ways beyond apprehensions. 

Among Tanushree, Kanhaiya Kumar, CS Rao, Thackeray, Chirag Paswan, Hardik Patel, the Savarn, the Naxals, the Adani or the Ambani, there will be the silent or the more revolutionary. The unequal justice as a cause will prevail, perhaps prevail more as people begin to recognise the thought behind the Constitution of India. A favourable judgement or an Ordinance is a temporary healing, not a cure for the Gandhian belief at an individual level or for masses at large. 

Legends are visionary. What they do is beyond a lifetime, rather beyond time. One may research Gandhi, invoke his ideals or quote his aspirations, the unwritten, unscripted ideas of Gandhi are shaping up, whether wanted or unwanted. Gandhi is an idea beyond time. 

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The Limelighted Shortsighted

The Limelighted Shortsighted.

I don’t know if you are proud, or, at least, satisfied by your achievements as you cross three forth of a majestic term. Or, if you find that you were shortsighted despite the limelight you were so privileged with.

May 2014 was not an ordinary month in the history of free India. It was an unprecedented moment when the entire nation showed solidarity with a mysterious name Modi. The Indian voter believed your words, expecting that even if half of your promises came through, India would take a giant step forward.

The foundation of the conviction was so strong as everything else appeared negligible in the face of Modi. Oh! What a golden opportunity was that for a PM!

An economy fairly well placed. The global markets back from the recessive moods. Oil prices crumbling its charts. A billion Indians enthusiastic. A huge battalion campaigning within and outside the nation to further mobilize support for a PM. Not shy of confronting or aggressively downsizing even a minor spurt of a criticism. Media, of all the communities, changing its tack with the view to present the glorious side, often hide pitfalls, and, further going out of its way to find the good side amidst scattered critical views.

No Prime Minister was ever publicly honored with such a favorable posturing.

As a matter of fact, the Indian voters, except for the BJP, or to a certain extent the Communists, have never been loyal to any party. They have been cruelly favorable to see through a stronger Government against circumstances. They brought down the Indira Government when the opposition looked sizeable enough to give an alternative. They did not show any emotion in bringing down Rajiv Gandhi once they realized his political novice could weaken the Government at the Centre. They stood behind Vajpayee when he looked strong. They also showed faith in Sonia when an experiment was made with Manmohan Singh. Equally, they were willing to accept a mysterious Modi despite several accusations as they felt that it was worth seeing a new alternative than standing by a Government in doubt.

How does it matter to a common Indian citizen what ideology the political parties follow? How does it matter to an electorate whether a caste, community or sect is given an edge of a privilege? How does it matter even that the candidate has criminal records against them? So long as they believe that the candidate has the will to deliver opportunities for education, health, public utilities and income.

So you were right in opting for “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikaas”. However, you did not deter from giving cues of inclinations that were opposite to your promise. If you were wise, you were also shortsighted in knowing that the electorate is wiser. If you were shrewd or crafty, you were also shortsighted in knowing that the electorate is just a little more endowed in being shrewd or crafty, literacy aside.

Your missions engaged strategies that had become ‘touch me not’ after Indira Gandhi proved that they were eventually devastating, and the Governments before you were scared to ever use them.

I am sure you knew that the whispers that often fear a strong Government, get more dangerous than the applauds you get because people want you to stay charged in the faith that you are a doer, and you will not hide. So, they want to push you to the farthest point of your potential. Surgically. So that they have squeezed the best meat out of you.

Building BJP as a party. Engaging media and the network of administrative chain to glorify you. Using emotional tools to keep the ‘this man has the capacity to do something’ perception ride over pitfalls. Coercing trusted opinion builders to essay out the ‘good work’. They took your priority over just sticking to seeing through the ready plans work more energetically, demonstrating, therefore, that a strong Government at the Centre can do much more than a Government founded in a coalition of varying purposes.

Come on, Mr PM. You were so evident and visible in telling what you wanted to keep in the hiding.

Why was it so compulsory for you to deny the religious, communal and cultural diversity in India? Did you not think to disrupt would draw out whatever nutritional values the soil retained for a yield. Did you seriously believe that consolidating a dogmatically inclined community would inspire a young evolving nation well connected with the modern world?  You may blame Congress for appeasing. But they may be appeasing a range of diversities. Choosing one in multiple societies to surge above the rest is a fanciful appeasement. Did you not expect that would open up unmanageable corridors of disapproval.

So, why would you shy away from the core? And why did you ignore the opportunity in hand? 

Were you scared that your weakness would tumble out of a facade that was working in your favor, if you chose the priorities of the nation above a willing to die battalion?

These are questions that are likely to become stronger by the 2019 elections. You may still win, but can you deny that you alone have weakened your position to win better.

You will be megalomaniacally inclined if you still believe that the crying farmers will be insensitive to the photograph of your reading the miles long letter of applaud sent by a farmer proud of you.


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