Guest guest Posted August 2, 2006 Report Share Posted August 2, 2006 Hindu Renaissance awaits a Leader: Who can be this leader? "...When defeatism parades itself as enlightenment, you know that something has to give way. We need a leader who can call a spade a spade, brook no nonsense and do what is right. We need a man the jihadis dread and loath. Such a man is waiting to take India by storm". Swapan Dasgupta's incisive column by the last few paras hit the nail! I strongly feel that the Hindu renaissance which is a life and death struggle awaits such a leader. People like us can at best only till the soil and plant the seeds so that the harvest is bountiful. When this happens who can be this leader? joshashok Mon, 31 Jul 2006 10:38:31 +0530 Hindu Renaissance * * * Excerpts: ======================================== Last week, India confronted a twin threat. First, the Islamist jihadis defiantly proclaimed to the world that they have the determination, organisation and technology to strike at the heart of India. The attacks on Parliament, Ayodhya and the RSS headquarters in Nagpur were foiled and the bombings in Delhi and Varanasi were dress rehearsals. Mumbai was the real thing and it left India distraught, disoriented and exposed. The media invocation of the ``Mumbai spirit'' of gritty resilience was actually a grotesque celebration of national helplessness. As if this good-humoured march to the gallows wasn't bad enough, India is confronted by a leadership vacuum of monumental proportions. It was absolutely revolting to hear a shamefaced Prime Minister mouthing inane platitudes about keeping the peace and defeating the nefarious designs of the terrorists. Was Sonia Gandhi any better? She certainly upstaged Manmohan Singh by rushing to Mumbai first and comforting the victims. But where India needed the steely determination of a Margaret Thatcher, or even Indira Gandhi, she chose to play Florence Nightingale for an evening. The leadership is in a state of denial. Almost all the indications available so far suggest that it was not a team of terrorists airdropped into India from Pakistan who were responsible for sneaking into first class compartments in Churchgate and planting the killer bombs. No, it is shamefacedly recognised by everyone that the killers were local, home-grown terrorists. You can call them Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Toiba or SIMI, the label does not matter. What matters is a formal recognition that our own citizens have decided to wage war on our own people. In short, they have disengaged themselves as citizens of India and committed themselves to a trans-national ideology based on the domination of one religion. We are squeamish about admitting that the divisive forces we pretended did not exist have abandoned playing vote bank politics and taken to the gun. Yes, the implications are absolutely frightening and hideous but nothing worthwhile will be served by pretending the problem does not exist. Nor will we be able to contain and control the problem by banning blogsites that reveal the ugly truth. History records that it is at these critical moments a leader often emerges who is able to transform dejection and despondency into determination and hope. Leadership involves the ability to capture the essence of popular feeling and nudge it in a clear direction. Leadership becomes inspirational, not because an individual is blessed with godly attributes, but because, ``in your heart you know he is right''. When defeatism parades itself as enlightenment, you know that something has to give way. We need a leader who can call a spade a spade, brook no nonsense and do what is right. We need a man the jihadis dread and loath. Such a man is waiting to take India by storm. -- Swapan Dasgupta ==================================== Here are some moments in the life of a nation when people eschew individualism and look for leadership. I don't know whether history will record the carnage of July 11 as a defining point for our country – just as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919 was for our grandfathers, the fall of France in 1940 was for the British, and September 11, 2001, was for the majority of Americans. It is not the scale of a disaster that prompts a country to break with the past. A decisive shift in a nation's collective way of thinking is invariably provoked by a corresponding feeling of vulnerability and helplessness. History records that it is at these critical moments a leader often emerges who is able to transform dejection and despondency into determination and hope. Neville Chamberlain, the rather stiff and gentlemanly soul who epitomised the policy of appeasement, was not lacking in popular support between 1937 and 1939. When he returned from Munich in 1938 with a piece of paper that promised ``peace with honour'' he was met by jubilant crowds grateful that another European war had been averted. Winston Churchill, who opposed Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, was then regarded as a crazy killjoy – a British Bal Thackeray. Yet, by the spring of 1940, when it was painfully clear that there was no alternative but to go the whole hog against Hitler, Chamberlain was unceremoniously dumped and Churchill installed. Something similar happened in India after 1919. The nationalist leadership slipped out of the hands of stalwarts like Lokmanya Tilak and Surendranath Bannerjee, all of who had rendered yeomen service to Indian nationalism, and India reposed its faith in a quirky Gujarati who cloaked politics in ethics. His political idiom was strange and many of his contemporaries saw the Mahatma as a dotty interloper. He was unique but there is no doubt that passive resistance and non- violence crippled the British Raj more effectively than all the guns and bombs put together. Leadership involves the ability to capture the essence of popular feeling and nudge it in a clear direction. Leadership becomes inspirational, not because an individual is blessed with godly attributes, but because, to use an ill-timed slogan of a failed American presidential aspirant ``in your heart you know he is right''. In 1971, Indira Gandhi captured the national spirit in the war against Pakistan; in 1974-75, the ageing Jayaprakash Narayan became the unlikely symbol of a people's exasperation with an arrogant and imperious Prime Minister; and between 1990 and 1993, L K Advani captured the profound Hindu disquiet with a decrepit secular order. Last week, India confronted a twin threat. First, the Islamist jihadis defiantly proclaimed to the world that they have the determination, organisation and technology to strike at the heart of India. The attacks on Parliament, Ayodhya and the RSS headquarters in Nagpur were foiled and the bombings in Delhi and Varanasi were dress rehearsals. Mumbai was the real thing and it left India distraught, disoriented and exposed. The media invocation of the ``Mumbai spirit'' of gritty resilience was actually a grotesque celebration of national helplessness. People spontaneously rushed to help and comfort the victims of the tragedy, took the personal discomfiture caused by the disruption in their stride and then – and this is the harsh, unspoken reality – waited for the fire next time. They played Mumbai meri jaan on TV when they should have been whistling Que sera sera – ``whatever will be, will be'', the signature tune of Hindu fatalism. As if this good-humoured march to the gallows wasn't bad enough, India is confronted by a leadership vacuum of monumental proportions. It was absolutely revolting to hear a shamefaced Prime Minister mouthing inane platitudes about keeping the peace and defeating the nefarious designs of the terrorists. It was remarkable that even in the face of such a disaster Manmohan Singh could not rise above the template mundane. It was equally humiliating to witness our diplomats suddenly get all shirty about Pakistan and forget the silly commitment made by the foreign ministers of both countries in July 2004 that ``nothing'', not even terrorism, would be allowed to derail the peace process. We travelled to the G-8 summit hoping that the world leaders would leave all the global problems and rush to condemn Pakistan. Nothing of the sort happened and, when we failed to provide conclusive evidence that it was the generals in Pakistan who had remote-controlled the explosions, we were sent off with a flea in our ear and instructed to resume the peace process – albeit after a face-saving interval. Was Sonia Gandhi any better? She certainly upstaged Manmohan Singh by rushing to Mumbai first and comforting the victims. But where India needed the steely determination of a Margaret Thatcher, or even Indira Gandhi, she chose to play Florence Nightingale for an evening. The leadership is in a state of denial. Almost all the indications available so far suggest that it was not a team of terrorists airdropped into India from Pakistan who were responsible for sneaking into first class compartments in Churchgate and planting the killer bombs. No, it is shamefacedly recognised by everyone that the killers were local, home-grown terrorists. You can call them Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Toiba or SIMI, the label does not matter. What matters is a formal recognition that our own citizens have decided to wage war on our own people. In short, they have disengaged themselves as citizens of India and committed themselves to a trans-national ideology based on the domination of one religion. We are squeamish about admitting that the divisive forces we pretended did not exist have abandoned playing vote bank politics and taken to the gun. Yes, the implications are absolutely frightening and hideous but nothing worthwhile will be served by pretending the problem does not exist. Nor will we be able to contain and control the problem by banning blogsites that reveal the ugly truth. When defeatism parades itself as enlightenment, you know that something has to give way. We need a leader who can call a spade a spade, brook no nonsense and do what is right. We need a man the jihadis dread and loath. Such a man is waiting to take India by storm. A Leadership Vacuum By Swapan Dasgupta http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayitems.asp?id =SEC20060727072809&eTitle=Columns&rLink=0 * * * Activating the leadership and vision thing: state of the nation of Bharatam Janam kalyan97 Tue, 1 Aug 2006 10:39:29 +0530 Activating the leadership and vision thing: state of the nation of Bharatam Janam "Yes, the implications are absolutely frightening and hideous But nothing worthwhile will be served by pretending the problem does not exist. Nor will we be able to contain and control the problem by banning blogsites that reveal the ugly truth. When defeatism parades itself as enlightenment, you know that something has to give way. We need a leader who can call a spade a spade, brook no nonsense and do what is right. We need a man the jihadis dread and loath. Such a man is waiting to take India by storm." (Swapan on 27 July 2006; http://tinyurl.com/kfudv ) The argument is fine but the last three sentences which articulate need rethink.. Why do we need a leader? When the problem is leadership, what is needed is leadership -- not 'a' leader. Why do we need a man to take India by storm? Why can't it be a woman? Leadership is not related to the identification of any one individual of whatever gender, even as an icon. Leadership is related to thinking right and articulating the collective outrage of the nation and to shake out of the intolerable state of the nation. The problem with identifying any single man or woman as leader to take the nation by storm is that such an individual may just misbehave. After all, frailty, thy name is human. I submit that Swapan should stop looking for a leader and start identifying leadership. There is already an organizational entity which can provide such a leadership. Swapan does not have to search far and wide. He will find it everywhere. It is the idea that the Bharatam Janam can say: enough is enough with the criminalised polity. Gaddi chodo. Quit stepping on our toes. Let us run through some aspects of leadership, citing from many who have thought through the idea of leadership. I don't have to reinvent the wheel and will borrow liberally from the idea articulated in a corporate context at the Big Dog and Little Dog web http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/ "The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion." - Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame Leadership involves use of strategies and tactics. Strategy as the creation of a unique and valuable market position supported by a system of activities that fit together in a complementary way. It is about making choices and trade-offs. It is about deliberately choosing to be different - - Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor and author of Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (1980). Tactics are NOW oriented and hence need an analysis of gaps in performance and determining steps to remove the gaps. What have you done today to enhance (or at least insure against the decline of) the relative overall useful- skill level of your work force vis-a-vis competitors - Tom Peters in Thriving on Chaos. I do not have to provide the rest of the prescriptions related to management, command and control. I don't think lessons in management are needed now. What is this vision thing? This vision thing is dharma which will result in the pursuit of happiness (abhyudayam) and liberation (nihs'reyas). We have all the lessons to learn; we just need a thousand narayanaguru's to activate the leadership and vision thing, to get out of the mess we have landed ourselves in. This is stated by Valmiki when he states: Ramo vigrahavaan dharmah; rama is the embodiment of dharma. When the leadership endowed with such an embodiment stirs, the state of the youngest nation on earth, of Bharatam Janam can be led to abhyudayam NOW. * * * God save the motherland from the deadly disease of the vote-bank politics! ========================================== Marxists lose sleep weeping for terrorist Madani http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name =Content&pa=showpage&pid=137&page=9 (Organiser, 2-7-2006); The report is quite shocking and outrageous. To add salt to the injury, it is reported in a section of the media that the key accused in the Coimbatore bomb blasts, which targeted Shri L.K. Advani and killed 58 people, Abdul Nasser Madani is given a `royal' treatment in a Tamil Nadu prison—courtesy the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Shri Karunanidhi! How true he is to his name! The left and the Congress in Kerala are competing with each other to woo the accused `terrorist' Madani. What a shame! The UPA government led by the Congress party, its partner the DMK and supporting it from outside, the `progressive' left parties are playing havoc with the lives of the innocent Indian people. Their vote-bank politics have obviously made them oblivious of the nation's security needs. And to expect from such a government to catch the perpetrators of the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai on July 11 is to ignore the ground realities. Even if they are arrested in future—which is highly unlikely though—they would be accorded the Madani treatment in prisons. The nation will rue the day it put the `secular' government in power in 2004. God save the motherland from the deadly disease of the vote-bank politics! —Shreeram Paranjpe, http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name =Content&pa=showpage&pid=142&page=26 =============================================== MASSAGING TERROR - PART II Terror accused Mahdani most valuable ally for Left, Cong http://www.indianexpress.com/story/9248.html KOCHI, JULY 24:If the DMK government in Tamil Nadu is arranging for 1998 Coimbatore blast accused Abdul Nasser Mahdani's Ayurvedic massages, the Left and the Congress in Kerala have been doing the stretching—prostrate at his feet. * * * MASSAGING TERROR - PART III In TN, radical Islamic outfit's latest recruits are fresh converts Jaya Menon http://www.indianexpress.com/story/9401.html MNP, founded by a former SIMI leader, has trained over 2,500 converts in five years; two arrested in Coimbatore this week converted barely a year ago THENI, JULY 26:A radical Islamic outfit on the state intelligence's watch list has made this sleepy pastoral village in Tamil Nadu a crucible for India's biggest conversion exercise in recent times. # posted by swamijyoti @ 5:07 AM Comments: I,British Hindu feel that it is not Indian Politicians but our various Dharam Gurus have fail the Hundisum.The will never take common stage,they will not point out at rogue Politicians.They are busy safeguarding their Maths,Gadi etc.They are so intoxicated in their own glory that they cannot foresee disaster to their own faith their future.These Gurus should for next election and be active in politics like Islamic Mullas. http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2006/07/hindu-renaissance-awaits- leader-who.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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