Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Scarcity of national leaders in Indian Politics

After freedom struggle Indian politics conspicuously lacked the true national level leaders.

This has done considerable damage to our national psyche. The growth of regionalism can also be attributed to the fact that our polity could never allow pan-Indian thoughts to flourish. Election could never been won on the national issues, local issues always mattered the most. The local MP is always blamed for the non-development of the region. So there are lesser incentives for a leader to broaden his thinking.

Therefore the coalition politics was always inevitable.

Because of this, sometimes i feel, the nehru-gandhi regime was needed in India. It was the only factor which kept India away from nuances of coalition politics. Now when there are no popular national level Nehru-Gandhi family member in politics, India is in trouble.

At least there should have been a leader of Vajpayee's stature who could provide leadership to the small leaders. Even that kind of leaders are not on the political scene.

Therefore 'who after Manmohan Singh' remains a big question in Indian Politics.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agree with your analysis!! There is scarcity of national leaders in Indian Politics.

If we consider leaders of today then only Congress seems to be in the state of holding the key posts in Government. But again, Dr. M.M.Singh is the last one...till now.

Congress is trying to make Rahul Gandhi a new leader and as far as I know he is quickly adapting himself.

Recently I came to know that he is applying Management and Marketing Skills to develop Congress mass-base. In a recent visit to some village in Rajasthan, Rahul Gandhi personally met those Congress workers who were able to make 100 Congress members in their village and there were around hundreds of such people. So around 100*100=10,000 people registered as Congress Members from a small town.
These figures are just indicative and in reality may exceed far more than my thought. So, for sure Congress is going to come in power next time and I have no doubt that Rahul Gandhi will be the next Prime Minister.

Shailendra said...

I personally do not like family rule, but if it helps ending the coalition nuances, i'll welcome it.

Having said that, we should also look into the advantages of coalition politics. Now the center can not be autocratic, the federal essence of our polity is being valued as never before.

Anonymous said...

@Shailendra I agree that with the gripping of coalition politics in Indian Politics, federal system has been re-enforced. However, I still feel that the mindset of our politicians is not fit for a federal system. I believe in a strong center with distribution of certain powers to States and this too with empowerment of PRIs.