The following article is based on my own interpretation of the said events. Any material borrowed from published and unpublished sources has been appropriately referenced. I will bear the sole responsibility for anything that is found to have been copied or misappropriated or misrepresented in the following post.
Arup Mondal, EMBA KOL 2015-18, Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur
The below post is based on a recent remarks from Mr. Arun Jeitley which was targeted towards the congress vice president Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Mr. Jeitley said “There are many people in this country whose children have to work for a living. There are ‘others’ who have lived for generations without working – they have learned the art of living comfortably without working, some of us have not.”
Readers should note that the post is not intended to malign any person in general and RaGa in particular, rather my own thoughts on basis of the merit of the statement made by Mr. Jeitley. We all accept that national politics is a select people’s game and you need immense composure and knowledge to be an astute politician. That political marksmanship comes through good education and experience and one needs broad shoulders and strong heart to handle the immense pressure. Pleasure and comfort are at bay for leaders in national politics.
But unfortunately we have seen that politics have become more of a holy grail that is passed to the descendants through generations. Dynasty politics is common – the Bush’s in US, the Gandhi’s in India, the Kim Jong’s of Korea are to name a few. Although I haven’t come across study that categorically states or finds any gene that is responsible for transmitting political wisdom to the descendants but it is true that upbringing in a political family always has an advantage. It creates a mindset at very early age. But that alone cannot justify that the sibling on one great leader will be another great one in the future. In Indian context a family name or one’s forefather’s name is enough to qualify him/her and get accepted as a people leader by the common masses. Indians no longer look into their educational background and their experience; never judge their individual capability to accept the person as their leader. All the person needs is to highlight the deeds and sacrifices made by their family ages ago. Their own contribution and work doesn’t count and seldom one gets to hear words about his/her contribution during public speeches. Those children of past leaders are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. They have wealth to feed generations to follow and hence refrain from doing any work which could have given them immense experience. Instead they focus on living a highly comfortable life, a life which general people cannot even think of. The general masses instead are too busy to earn their own living and get their own problems sorted. They remain too busy to select the right people as their leader. Irony is that they end up looking to a guy who doesn’t have the knowledge and experience to understand the condition of the common masses. Spending a night at a common man’s house before election or sympathizing with them is what such leaders need to fool the already fooled people.
To be in politics and running for a respectable position in the party or nation has never been a democratic process in India and it is true for all the parties. Hence true people representation has always suffered in the lower house. A candidate is never judged on merit of his work, rather judged by his blood relations. This is sad and ironical and we the common people are only to blame here. We should stop believing that a “mahatma’s (not referring to Mahatma Gandhi) son/daughter is a mahatma too”. The urge should be choosing your leader on basis of his merit, education, his ideas and contribution. It is our own responsibility to be judicious and prove that such statements wrong in future.
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