Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

Hindu Renaissance awaits a Leader

Rate this topic


Guest guest

Recommended Posts

Guest guest

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...