Article on “World is waiting for the next Gandhi”.
The
behavior of political leaders around the world today is a matter of grave
concern. Leaders across the political spectrum, be right wing leaders in
America or left wing leaders in China or Russia, are all increasingly
demonstrating dictatorial tendencies. Anyone
closely following global trends will notice that in many countries, including
smaller countries like Myanmar and Belarus, there is a tendency for national
leaders to make all efforts to keep power in their hands at any cost. One justification
that we generally hear is that, to run a centralized economy dictatorial personalities
are needed for taking unpopular decisions and curtailing dissent during
implementation of those controversial decisions.
It
is not difficult to see a reflection of these global trends at the national and
state level. Not only the Prime Minister of India but also some current and
previous Chief Ministers have concentrated all powers in their own hands and are
using/have used their power to influence all institutions including the media.
In spite of their anti-people style and behavior they are able to win
elections. They also have significant following among the public who have
complete faith in their style of leadership. Something has gone seriously wrong
in our world in our collective understanding on the art of leadership. Certain
dangerous ideas seems to have percolated our collective consciousness. Politics
was meant to be a platform for organizing the society. Unfortunately the
present day political leaders have failed to understand the original meaning
and objectives of the idea of political work and are focused on everything
other than organizing the society. Many young people in countries like India,
France, US and Columbia are concerned about this development. They are
interested to bring an end to this political culture. In a webinar held
recently many young people were speaking about the need for a bottom-up process
of leadership building. They were also speaking about decentralization of power
so that local communities can take responsibility for their own destiny. According to Mahatma Gandhi’s political
philosophy, only when every individual is in a position to direct their own
destiny while respecting the reality of mutual dependency in society, can we
say that we have achieve freedom in real sense of the word.
One
of the most surprising realities is that many people who have actively
participated in long-term struggle in the name of democracy have finally ended
up being small dictators themselves when power came into their hands. We only
have to look around carefully to find hundreds of such examples around us. Take
the example of India, those who are in power today were the people who fought
against emergency that was imposed by Indira Gandhi. In terms of curtailing
individual freedom, an environment fear permeating in the air, using all forms
of institutional powers to curtail dissent today’s situation is in no way
different from what we faced during emergency. Capturing political power
through horse-trading, using all forms of institutional power available at hand
to not only suppress the voices of people and media but also the voice of
political opponents are all parts of the repertoire of interventions to manage an
emergency. So the real test is not how vocally one raises their voice against
dictatorial tendencies in others but the real test is how one behaves when one gets
an opportunity to run the same show. I have many friends who are opposed to any
kind of authoritarian rulers. They will even risk their life to fight such authoritarian
regimes, but when I visit their organization or institution I can see hints of
their authoritarian tendencies as a leader. They have absolutely no interest in
sharing power with their team members and have no faith in a participatory method
of governance. They don’t even think the
team members in the organization are of any worth. These leaders gave no
opportunity to anyone who spoke about decentralization of power within the
organization. Psychologically speaking this is a classic manifestation of mirror
image or shadow image. Leaders who raise their voice against concentration of
power and undemocratic decision making are often fighting against someone who
looks or behaves like them. Often their fight is not against the values but it
is against a particular individual. They are in competition with whoever is in
power and their mind is craving to be in that position.
I
have my reasons to be concerned about the leadership model in many
organizations. I believe that just by speaking for democracy or speaking
against dictatorship things are not going to change. Our efforts at
transforming our social and political systems should begin from us and our
organizations because this is the place where we can bring about the change we
seek in larger society. If we can’t run a small organization of 20 or 30 people
democratically and in a participatory manner what moral right do we have to
raise hue and cry about democracy in India or in the world. Doing so is in no way different from political
parties who speak against suppression of opposition when they are in the opposition
but then go on to suppress the opposition when they come to power. Didn’t BJP
say that they will create a heaven on earth if they come to power? But now we can
see that the situation is much worse than what it was before? They have created
a society full of mistrust, hate and helplessness. Probably this is their
concept of heaven. Hence I have come to conclude that political parties, organizations,
or individuals speaking about democracy will have to first demonstrate their
faith in democracy through their own behavior.
Gandhi
repeatedly reminded us about the need for total harmony between what we speak
and what we do. He acted up on an idea before preaching. The problem in our
country today is that a lot of people are preaching democracy without any
desire to practice them when opportunity is given. People are now waiting in
every country for new set of leadership that can feel their pain and be part of
them to emerge. They want a leader who can stand with then and lead them from behind.
Unfortunately the present day political leadership only know how to fight elections
and capture power. They have completely forgotten the most important objective
of political power is to serve the people and organize the society. I am sure many young people in the world will
address these challenges not by speaking but through their action. World is waiting
for the next Gandhi!!!
Rajagopal.P.V
28th June 2021
