I liked the article Leadership calls, at Durban and Bhopal statecraft written by Harish Khare, published in Hindu on 26 September 2007.
The article is wonderfully crafted and is able to bring out clearly the attitude, quality and essence of leadership that is required to propel forward teams, countries and societies. The article contrasts and compares the meeting of the national executive of the BJP with the winning of the Indian Cricket team against Australia at Durban in the ICC World Twenty 20 tournament focusing on the styles of leadership. I do not subscribe to some of the views about politics and disinclination of youth towards socialistic policies and freedom struggle expressed by the author in the article, but I did very much like the point he has brought forward and beautifully discussed about the attitudes of leadership.
I am providing some experts from the article here which I have directly taken from it. You can access the entire article here.
Background
“Even before the final of the World Twenty20 cricket championship in Johannesburg on Monday, the new India’s itch for a new leadership idiom had manifested itself at Durban in the semi-final against a very, very formidable Australia. Johannesburg not merely confirmed the new style and new confidence, the joyous eruption of celebrations across the country also underlines the new mood of self-belief: not what the outsider can do to you and get away with but what you can do to him if the leader believes in himself and his team. Beyond the media-generated hype, what got underlined at Durban and Johannesburg was that the young and the younger generations are itching to break out of the paradigm of self-doubt and timidity that the old and the tired leaders have put in place in the polity in the name of experience and seniority.
If the never-ending Atal Bihari Vajpayee-L.K. Advani sparring for the (non-existing) prime ministerial mantle was not bad enough, it was the harking back to the presumed electoral appeal of the “Ram Sethu” controversy that betrayed an unimaginative and backward-looking mindset. At Bhopal, the exhausted leaders tried to manufacture a new lexicon of demons and heroes, anchored in a very, very distant past, totally at variance with modern India’s pains, aspirations, and dreams. If Durban and Johannesburg came to symbolise the honesty of purpose and spirit of endeavour, Bhopal witnessed a relapse into calculation and cynicism.”
Contrast
“The contrast between Durban and Bhopal is essentially a contrast between two variations of national sentiments — a desire to move forward, take risk, venture into unknown territory, rely on one’s wits, skills and instincts, and not be afraid to fail; and, then, there is the old style, content to play for percentages, a preoccupation with minimalist expectations, a reliance on cleverness (rather than wisdom), and a self-absorbed mofussil pragmatism, devoid of moral certitudes. The younger generation may be oblivious to the “legacy” of the national movement, it may be regrettably unconcerned with the farmers committing suicides in the Vidharbha region, it may choose to remain unimpressed with the bogus piety and spurious sentimentality regularly dished out by a cynical political leadership; but, this generation is also unwilling to let the tired and exhausted old men define its dreams for it.”
The paragraphs have been extracted from the article Leadership calls, at Durban and Bhopal statecraft written by Harish Khare, published in Hindu on 26 September 2007.
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