A Billion People and no Leader

By Swami Agnivesh & Rev. Valson Thampu

The recent India Today-ORG-MARG opinion poll underscores the obvious.
Bankruptcy of leadership has attained epidemic proportions in this country. We are incorrigible hero-worshippers. We continue to look for larger-than-life characters. We reach out for the moon, but catch the fish of mediocrity. We do the best we can to turn them into whales of wonder. But the heroes of our invention reveal feet of clay.

It is a significant commentary on the present state of affairs that Indira Gandhi continues to top the political popularity charts even today. 41% of the people covered by the India Today poll held her to be the best; whereas Vajpayee's share was a paltry 11%. His popularity has plummeted by 13% in a matter of 8 months. At the same time, Vajpayee's
loss has not meant Sonia's gain.

These are the facts. But facts are not decisive in themselves. What is decisive is how we interpret them. These findings could be so interpreted as to make out a case for reinventing autocratic and dictatorial leadership styles. According to an otherwise levelheaded journalist, the secret of Mrs. Gandhi's charisma is her "ruthless and
defiant exercise of power". Even if wholly unintended, the propagation of such a thesis could idolize ruthless exercise of power and catalyze the emergence of counterfeit Hitlers. Surely, Asia has had its own share of demented dictators more ruthless than Mrs. Gandhi could ever have been. They no longer remain cherished memories. Lest we forget, it was precisely for her 'ruthless exercise of power' that the people of India
rejected her soon after the Emergency.

The significance of Indira's continued popularity tells quite a different tale. It bespeaks an indictment of the present state of drift and rot, rather than the nostalgia for her style of leadership. More specifically, it proves the growing middle class anxiety about
Vajpayee's inability to hone and harness our tolerant and pluralistic ethos. This anxiety has been deepened by the Prime Minister's glorification of the perfidy in Ayodhya as an eruption of our national aspirations, and reinforced since then by his eagerness to humour the Parivar hawks.

Vajpayee is an ironic case of having been defeated by his own victory. As an opposition leader, he was in his natural elements. With an oratory spiced with sense and sensibility, an affable personality that could attack without antagonizing, a free spirit that did not have to walk the tightrope of coalition dharma, Vajpayee was cut out for the role he
played then. He had little to lose, and all to win. Having won all, he suddenly had to learn an unfamiliar script. Overnight, Vajpayee had to learn the art of steadying the seat of power that he had, for so long, specialized in shaking. It was a role that did not lend itself to sweeping statements or heroic postures. It called for silence more than rhetoric, for cold maneuvering and calculated risks, all of which were not the man's forte. The conundrums of coalition politics called for the instincts of a political manager, not the intuition of a charismatic leader. Vajpayee had to reinvent himself as an executive avatar.

Vajpayee had the opportunity of a lifetime in the wake of the Tehelka expose to define the contours of his image. Had he followed his own best intuitions, rather than the cold calculations of a coterie, and dealt with the situation as firmly and transparently as it deserved, he would have stood ten feet tall today. That he did not; but chose, instead, to
pursue the beaten track of merely deflecting attention from the indefensible. In doing so, he squeezed himself into an overworked political stereotype.

But even this does not fully explain the steep decline in his public appeal. To see this for what it is, we need to reckon the fast-changing national scenario, to which there are some significant pointers in the India Today-ORG-MARG survey. The common man today is more sensitive to matters pertaining to his welfare than he is to the propagation of
ideologies. Asked to rate their concerns, the respondents to the survey listed the following priorities: rising prices, unemployment, corruption, law and order, national security, stability, communalism, in that order.

Significantly, for the Indian citizen his personal security is today a greater priority than national security. This is bad news, incidentally, for those who whip up war hysteria for unmerited electoral gains. Equally significant is the fact that communalism is the common man's last priority. This is, perhaps, even worse news; for what this means is
that an ideology based on communal hate cannot continue to appeal to the imagination of the masses. What all these indicate beyond any shadow of doubt is the fact that the Indian voter now judges political leaders and parties on the basis of their performance in governance, rather on than the pre-poll promises they make. This must be factored into the crisis of popularity that stares Vajpayee in the face.

There are two things Vajpayee needs to do at once. First, he must spell out and implement a positive vision for the welfare of the people and the steady progress of the nation. Another round of starvation deaths and suicides will send him on his way to political superannuation. Corruption may be a bourgeois bug; but starvation deaths are not. Vajpayee must send out, besides, unequivocal signals to the nation as a
whole that he means to be the Prime Minister of the people of India, and not the mere swayamsewak of an ideological outfit. He cannot afford any longer to live, camel-like, off the hump of his past rhetoric or presumed personal charisma. The hungry have no stomach for finer tastes; they prefer bread to words; words even of the most poetic variety. Our people today are sensitive, to an unprecedented extent, to quality of
life. Vajpayee must restore the confidence of the common man in governance by reining in the wheeler-dealers who are bleeding this country to economic death. He must liberate his government from the clutches of financial speculators and communal circumlocution officers.

The second thing Vajpayee needs to do is to move closer to the people. The foremost reason for the degeneration of the culture of governance all over the world is the growing gulf between the rulers and the people. One would have thought that Vajpayee, with his uncanny crowd-sense, would have dived deep into the hearts of the masses. Instead, he seems to have cast himself in the mould of a political patriarch who is entitled to quasi-religious obeisance from the people, without any corresponding obligation to reach out to them or care for them. This gregarious man has become a prisoner of the office to an
extent that Indira never did. Vajpayee, the born communicator, stopped communicating with the people of India. All that they see is the image of a frail and struggling man, senile and indecisive. This image is reinforced by a series of diplomatic and political fiascoes. They aggravate the visual impressions of his infirmity at a time when nothing
less than bold and visionary leadership can take the country out of the present mess.

In the end Vajpayee, and all aspirants to the highest executive office of this country, needs to reckon the moral nuances of statecraft. The State is not merely a manager of power and resources. It must also be a carrier of values and ideals; and that, to ensure its own stability and the governability of the people. The more corrupt a society becomes, the more fervently do the people long for leaders who can embody the values they violate routinely. A Mother Teresa, for example, would not have been such a wonder in a caring society. But leaders emerge from the same moral and human soil that produces the rest of the society. So it makes good sense that a people get the kind of leaders they deserve.

The poverty of the leadership is, in other words, a commentary on the character and culture of the society as a whole. Yet, at the same time, a leader of integrity stands every prospect of being idolized by the masses, especially in a corrupt society. The mark of a politically responsible people is not only that they vote for an honest leader but
also exercise continued vigilance to ensure that he stays honest and upright. What no one ever wants is a mix of weakness and corruption. It is in reaction to this uninspiring combination that people now prefer the strong personalities of the past. We do ourselves no good by misconstruing this as craving for dictatorial ruthlessness or democratic
fascism.