When comes such another...?

A leader is an individual who has followers. This is the simplest definition of leadership known to me. Every society acts as a nursery of leadership and influence in diverse ways. Sports, theatre, arts, education and industry all provide great avenues for effective leadership to emerge and get acknowledged by the society. However, the most visible and obvious platform for exemplary leadership has always been politics and governance.

Today, a pioneer of one distinct brand of political leadership in India takes his last journey. Balasaheb Keshav Thackeray has passed away and with his passing, however, cliché it may sound, an era has certainly ended. A cartoonist, a social reformer’s son, an activist and lastly a political behemoth in Maharashtra has breathed his last. A larger than life personality and a Godfather of sorts who claimed that his dictatorial iron fist of leadership was needed for progress today lays silent.

The spirit of regionalism was ushered in through the ‘Samyukta Maharashtra’ movement in the 1950’s. Prabodhankar Thackeray, balasaheb’s social reformer father was an integral part of this movement. Balasaheb at the time, was a cartoonist at the Free Press Journal, who had broken out to launch his own newsletter ‘Marmik’ which fought against the growing influence of Gujaratis and South Indians in Maharashtra. His father very passionately on a fine day in 1966 at Shivaji Park, launched him into mainstream politics by offering his “Bal” meaning Son in Marathi for the service of Maharashtra. Shiv Sena, an aggressive political outfit was thus born.

Some might say, he was an opportunist, who found a great chance to tap into the anger seeped into public sentiment due to the communist phase in Maharashtra through the 1960’s. Nehru died in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966 and the Congress was headless in that phase of a suffering economy full of stagflation. He instigated the support of the hoi polloi which felt deprived of chances and opportunities to progress. He fought for quotas in Government jobs for local youths.  He fought against the South Indians and later Gujaratis dominating the city of Mumbai emerging as the true ‘Son of the soil’ or a ‘Pranti’ as he preferred to call himself. He instilled in his people a sense of pride, who earlier felt humiliated in their own land. Nobody dared refer to them as “Ghaatis” in their own land post Shiv Sena’s ascent. His greatest gift perhaps to his people, was their self-respect.

He took over the reins of the industrial labour unions and he established his local network of ‘Shakhas’ which were local units / branches responsible to carry forward the work and ideology right down to the grassroots level.  Post the Babri Masjid demolition and the 1992 riots, his nuanced moves ensured that he got pitted as the “Hindu Hriday Samrat” (The king of Hindu hearts) further propelling him as a perceived strong Hindutva force in a strong alliance with the BJP. He was the Godfather to Bollywood giving them protection against the increasing horrors of the powerful Mumbai underworld. He stood behind a helpless father Sunil Dutt, looking to get justice for his erratic movie star son Sanjay. This ability to forge enduring relationship across party lines and ideologies is what truly made him a remarkable paternal figure.

The turn of the millennium saw surging aspirations and aspirations always lead to defections. He lost trusted lieutenants like Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane who left him to pursue their growing aspirations. His biggest blow came when his own protégé, Raj Thackerary, his nephew, who he was extremely close to and fond of broke away from the Shiv Sena to form his own outfit called ‘Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.’ 2004 Assembly election loss, partially crushed him, age did it’s thing too.

His appeal lied in the feudal concept of the rulers being the protectors of the interest of the ruled. His spirit of nationalism was unparalleled. His views were debatable, questionable and to some simply unacceptable, still, there are not many leaders who spoke their mind with as much conviction as him.

Legacy is a wonderful thing; it normally finds its deserving owner. If it is unable to do so, it erodes a part of itself at the hands of its creator. Balasaheb’s largest shortcoming some may say, is this ineffective handover of his legacy.  

It is ironic that historically, Indian political leadership comes from two divergent ends of the ideological spectrum. The 'Servant Leadership' of Gandhi or that of 'Constructive Violence' of Bal Thackeray. The void in between the two is why this nation suffers. As I exercise my fingers typing out this obituary, there are 2 million people crawling the streets of Mumbai following their fallen leader. There’s this lingering line which resurfaces in my memory from Julius Ceaser, when Antony says of Julius Ceaser, "Here was a Ceaser, When comes such another?"

Images Courtesy - Google Images

Incredible November and the Pack of Cards!!

November, 2008 will go down in the history of the world as a month which taught mankind how illusionary and transitory size and scale is. November brought with it, one of the biggest hurricane the corporate world had ever witnessed in the financial meltdown and also made us witness to one of the most the horrific terror attacks in India. Somewhere, a common theme between the collapses of very different empires is that of lack of controls, discipline and processes. It is all a result of the games our mind plays with us. The fall of empires is an outcome of allowing the mind to run wild.

Let us connect this with something we do everyday. Crisis management is about creating a simpler and focused regulatory environment which is efficient, quick, consistent and reliable. Be it related to financial or human security regulation. If you look at it objectively keeping emotions aside, I think it is about clearing out all the “Unpredictability & unreliability” that exists in the way we currently tackle our situations of crisis across forms & scale in India. In a model such as this, controls come in without making the whole deal look bureaucratic. Technology takes over the role of controls and doesn’t allow leaks. This is exactly how successful business processes get built too. Responsible organizations control their minds. Or they go down like pack of cards. (Lehman Bros, Merrill Lynch)

That brings me to another performance metric, which is reliability. Reliability is essentially a testimony of inherent strength. Superlative performance one week and down the next doesn’t get us too far. *(Kudos to the clinically consistent approach followed by NSG throughout the rescue operation). If you go to see, every stakeholder wants to see an expected consistency in performance levels, and here the stakeholders are the citizens of the country.

We have hugely challenging times coming up. As I have already said, “The insanity of extremism is over…but the insanity of polity will start now!” and we must collectively suppress it in its attempt to polarize us using their age old disguised sympathetic vote bank politics, especially in times of general elections looking large on the country. Times to come are going to challenge our grit, reliability and determination as a collective dynamic emerging society. Let’s look at this adversity and turn in into a positive opportunity to bring about a lasting change. The youth of our country have enormous power. Let’s give it everything we’ve got and get this period so right – like never before!

Remember we want the systems to be reliable, consistent & effective. Let’s ourselves be that. Let’s not be shooting stars. They sure look good, but they shine for a few seconds and later get relegated to National Geographic episodes. It takes a real sun to rise every morning – tear the clouds apart, chase the darkness away and say, “Sun, good morning, may I shine on you?” and do so every morning. Lets rededicate ourselves to our purpose of life with rejuvenated vigor. Let’s do, what we do best, a little better. Let’s not be terrorized by the losses of money and men. Let’s unshackle ourselves from the misery of cynicism and let’s free ourselves from being called the victims time and again.

C’mon India, It’s time to make that journey towards change. Let’s answer all the difficult questions together, and tell them… “Yes, we can……”

An Idea for India….

15th August, 2008: Instead of the regular and almost ritualistic wake up trance on the Independence Day morning of watching the PM’s address from the Red Fort, this time I did something rather different.. Or indifferent I must say. It was a Friday and yes, today I would get my copy of the Economic Times, *(I don’t subscribe to it on weekends due to affordability issue – it costs Rs. 9 on Sundays). So cherishing the great opportunity of browsing through the ET early morning, I came across this masterpiece compilation in the “Corporate Dossier” supplement of the ET. 9 of India’s CEO’s had volunteered to write for the special publication. It was truly a special issue which indeed brought out the varied opinions of these CEO’s on nation building, articulating their ideas for India’s future. It was truly insightful. I’m just attempting to summarize what I gathered from their opinions with my own inputs here. Let’s see if An IDEA can change our lives….

Henry Luce, the legendary founder of TIME, called business, an instinctive exercise in foresight. So is nation building, said the learned CEOs. Let us acknowledge the fact that in the history of this world, nations sometimes find themselves on the threshold of opportunity, it is then that their adopted actions & policies that determine how successful these nations emerge as global powers. There are various such opportunities that time has given to the world. Be it the World War, Cold War, Humans going into space, birth of atomic & nuclear warfare, or the more recent global economic slowdowns. The series of events have always thrown up opportunities in times of adversities.

India is today faced with the great paradox of population. Where today every 6th person in the world is an Indian, where do we see our country going ahead into the future? We as the people of this country must decide how we want India to be positioned at the turn of the next decade. We have some inherent strength in the form of our young populations, a pervasive & strong democracy and the naturally entrepreneurial spirit of our people, but is it enough to make us a superpower in times to come? Certainly not…

Despite having one of the best democracies in the world, ironically Indian polity faces the chronic disease of opportunism & petty shortsightedness. Most of all, it is the sheer distorted priorities of leadership in this country which has posed a most ghastly scare to the nation’s progress. Just to sight an example, the CM of Maharashtra offering a Rs. 10 lakh reward to Abhinav Bindra, the millionaire shooter Kid of a millionaire father. This is not to undermine Abhinav’s magnanimous achievement in bagging an individual Gold for India, but just goes to show the completely distorted priorities of our leadership. Does Abhinav actually need that money? What does Maharashtra specifically have to do with Abhinav, who is actually a resident of Chandigarh? And then they complain that farmers are committing suicide in Vidarbha!

With the inflation at its peak, and the world facing a financial slowdown, the Government is busy making its point by proving its majority on the floor of the house, just because a handful of old fashioned red obsessed Bongo Malyali comrades thought that the Nuclear Deal is not in India’s national interest. Also if all this drama wasn’t enough, our old protagonists at nationalistic drama, the saffron brigade pull out a sensationalism & wannabe’ishness personified cash for vote sting, which was nothing short of Rakhi Sawant antics thrown in the media just to get undue attention. The Hon. Speaker of the house of Lok Sabha is suspended from his own party and bundles of notes thrown in front of the parliament. Multiple bomb blasts across Gujarat & other cities across the country are only few of the examples of the high handedness with which this country is Governed.

Nandan Nilekani, the Co Chairman of Infosys in his article (which I could relate to the most) writes that Policy Makers need to recognise that free markets and reforms in themselves can be pro poor. We do not need the glam high but brittle promises of thousands of crores of farm loan waivers. He wonderfully describes India as “Limited Access” state. The rapid growth that India witnessed over the last 2 decades is fuelling new hopes amongst Indians, for better lives, incomes and employment. But there is too much that still barricades the way. And the reason that so many Indians remain cut off from the economy is that we have yet to fully embrace what ought to be the core idea behind reforms – expanding access.

Air Deccan, a wonderful model of expanding flying experience access to marginalized people has been dumped because of the taxation policies of the Govt on Surcharge & taxes on Air Fuel & Airport development. The lack of capital means, average Indian finds it difficult to take loans to start up his business. A weak subsidy system means that poorer Indians lack any kind of safety net to take big life risks, such as attempt higher education or migrate for better jobs. Only 15% of our farmers have bank credit. With our Government run schools in dismal state and almost 90% of our populations still languishing in the underpaid, underdeveloped unorganized sector we sure have a reason to regroup and rework our strategies.

If we have to match upto the “Great American Dream” of the 1950’s and the 1960’s or walk head to head with the Chinese Great Leap of the 1970’s and 1980’s we need to expand access of basic resources to the most poorest of the poor. We need many more “Lead India” & “Teach India” campaigns. Many of us will find this goal a struggle. But then, most of our past triumphs have come after a great struggle. All our battles that we have won have been hard fought. We are seen as a country which exemplifies struggle. Now, we must ensure that the world wakes up and takes notice of the sheer power of the hopes and aspirations of 1.1 Billion people. After all, it is said, that a single idea can change your life…