As I was going through my Twitter feed, I came across Derek O'Brien tweeting a link to a public debate on Times Now.The issue up for discussion was that of Leadership. Now knowing that Arnab Goswami was chairing the debate, I decided to sit and view the debate in its entirety - I surely wanted to see what the nation wanted to know today! And then the plot also had Avishek Manu Singhvi (Congress), Gaurav Bhatia (SP), Ravi Shankar Prasad (BJP) and Derek O'Brien (TMC) - going by the number of words spoken every minute by each of the names - this should be fun, I thought.
But what I saw and more importantly heard left me quite sad. What became clear was that this wasn't going to be like a debate that we know in the literal sense. Throughout the debate, participants kept shouting at each other, and the host kept shouting at the participants - this surely wasn't the way to hold a national debate. The spokesperson from the top two parties just had one agenda it seems - out shout the other. But each one of the panelist did a wonderful job on walking the plank for their parties respectively, however absurd or impractical the logic may be. And even better job of not listening to what the other had to say. I would not recommend that you see the video in full, the first 10 minutes should be fair test of your patience!
But the deeper question never got answered - what should be the qualities a leader should have? More importantly what should be a leader of the country like India be like? Well since the 4 people on the panel hardly answered that, I looked around to form a hypothetical figure of what that person may look like. I must admit looking at the present bunch of heads in the political horizon, there are very few who would fit the bill. And to that, the ones who do, possibly wont have the numbers to back them up. But should we just settle for less- No!I think this country deserves better. I would hope we get a leader who is accountable, responsible, and takes ownership for everything happening under his/her watch. I don't want my leader to tell me he/she is above board but they cant take responsibility for any of their team. Well I don't think they have ever heard about the leader being as good or bad as his team. I want my leader to lead by example. I want my leader to be able to appreciate good work that someone else might have done from another party. I want my leader to be able to take ownership for shortcomings - learn from them for the future.
I would want that the leader we have, is informed and not afraid to talk and make his points heard. I hope the leader is one who has a track record of project ideation and execution at scale - be it in any field - corporate or otherwise. I don't want only symbolical gestures from my leader - wearing a skull cap or otherwise means very little. I want a leader who isn't afraid to communicate to the masses, who believes in transparency. I want a leader who is well versed in political stagecraft - because you need to drive consensus across party lines on matters of national importance. I also want a leader who also is the undisputed leader for his political party - we have seen an experiment over the past ten years and have a fair understanding of the challenges of that not being the case. I want a leader who isn't afraid to drive electoral reforms and judicial reforms. I want a leader who is committed to provide a fiscal budget that doesn't run into the negative. Somewhere the idea being conveyed to the country has always been that fiscal deficit is something that cant be avoided in a country like ours - I differ. With prudent accounting, plugging of leakages in the system, I am sure we can look at a self sustaining budget. I want a leader who can drive India's interest in global halls. I want an leader who can understand the possibility of using technology & money to improve 3 basic sectors - Agriculture, Education, and Heathcare.
And these are just some of the things that I would have on the wishlist - there can be hundred more. But then it also dawns on me that this indeed is quite a lot to ask from a person. But if you are the leader for a country of 1.2 billion, you need to be special. I hope society through its checks and balances help foster such leaders. I would not even go to the extent of measuring the two people mostly being touted as the next possible PM - both measure far less on that scale. We deserve a better set of leaders.
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