Sunday, January 08, 2012
Do we need another Chanakya!
Hell! YES!!!
I happen to see some of the episodes of the Tele-serial ‘Chandragupta’
on ‘imagine’ … and happen to read an interesting novel – ‘Chanakya Chant’. My
assessment of the current Indian Political situation calls for the similarities
with the rule of ‘Nands’ at the time of Chandragupta/ Chanakya. In that era,
the Nand (King Dhanand, who killed his own father and siblings to become the
king) was the sole person to acquire the property/gold/ … form of money. In
today’s scenario, it’s worse… it’s not just one person, but who-so-ever who gets
an opportunity to do so … basically several Nands in their own territories (aka
ministers/ or elected representatives (MLAs) …). In fact if we extrapolate to both
public and private sectors, we can redefine the territories to their work areas
(dept, geographical location, area of constituency, industry, etc…) and at the
individual level, we have reincarnated a Nand …
In that era, it took almost 12-15 years of Chankya to groom
Chandragupta from a kid to a fierce warrior to overthrow Nand. Not only
that, he deployed a farsighted strategy covering all the aspects of political
game. Chandragupta was just a small piece who may have played a lead role; it
was Chanakya’s brain and strategy which worked beyond the limits of
Chandragupta, which lead to revolution … A revolution, which was people
centric, a revolution to bring in constructive change. A major point to note is
that Chanakya’s vision was not to defeat Nand – that was just a milestone for a
much larger vision … which was a United India – ready to face to biggest
challenge (of that time) of Alexander the great (an external crisis, a ruthless emperor who was coming with full force, acquiring the
land wherever he stepped on) …
This is so relevant today … we might not have Alexander as
threat … but we have worse, we have global economic crisis, neighboring
countries’ malicious intensions … and internal conflicts … (be it Naxals/Maos
or be it Gurjars, Dalits … etc.) With weak opposition, the poorly structured
and organized government is losing its feet to govern the country in the best
of the interest of the growth and development. What’s evern worse is that the
President is too meek to step in … even though she (or he) doesn’t have real
powers to stop or intervene in any matter … The condition is so pathetic that
we don’t have MPs discussing key matters (properly) in the Parliament – what we
see more often is adjournment, walkouts, literal fights, etc … corruption to
the core … spread like a viral fever … Today, even it there is an election,
citizens don’t have any direction as who to vote for ! … What I foresee and
another government which is even more disintegrated …
Coming back to point … what we need is another Chanakya …
APJ-AK did try to be one … providing a vision for the country … however, he was
practically thrown out and was replaced by a dummy (who could be tamed/
ignored!!) … Could Anna do the same … I think not …
a) he it too old …
b) he doesn’t have a Chandragupta (we can’t call Arvind
Kejriwal that) …
c) he doesn’t have good vision (he has mission … not vision)
…
d) he doesn’t have any strategic thinking … and further more
doesn’t think beyond one or two aspects … working tactically is the main issue
which is leading to fizzle out of his initiatives …
e) last but not least, his own team is struggling with
credibility and united strength …
Probably some strong visionary can step up to be a Chanakya,
who can hunt and groom a person to be the ideal representative of people – who
could think on his feet towards larger benefit than his own individualistic
needs … till then … we meek, weak and suppressed citizens (who have no
physical / monetary power to fight) should have to
sit quietly and wait patiently for the rising sun!
PS: my saying that MPs/ MLAs practicing corruption doesn't mean every one of them is following same path - but most of them do ... or at least they don't raise their voice against it ...
Comments:
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Quite interesting ... never thought of APJ-AK or Anna as Chanakya equivalents ...
I agree with you .. we need a Chanakya, but more importantly in the uber connected world of today, it will be difficult for Chanakya to keep his Chandragupta focussed on his goal :-)
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I agree with you .. we need a Chanakya, but more importantly in the uber connected world of today, it will be difficult for Chanakya to keep his Chandragupta focussed on his goal :-)
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