I have had the opportunity of interacting with leaders at various levels — right from the block upwards to the national level. There is a lot difference in the style of leadership and the kind of leadership at the block, district, state and the national levels. But there is also a common thread running along these different levels of leadership. I can see that leaders, who have a direct rapport with the people, are easily accessible and have the intellectual ability to understand the core issues, have a very high chance of success — whatever level it is, whether it is the block level, district, state or national level. But, at times, you meet certain leaders who have become leaders because they have been elected an MP, an MLA, a pramukh or a mukhiya. So, they have got the status of a leader, but the leadership quality is missing. It can be a very good academic discussion whether the kind of leadership you come across fulfills the criteria of a good leader. If not, what is the problem? Why people with good leadership qualities are not getting thrown up to lead people? But, generally, I have seen that a person, who has all the qualities of understanding the core issues at stake, a person who is accessible, a person who’s not ready to compromise the well-being of common man, goes up — irrespective of the level at which the person is operating. Generally, you will see such people with these qualities — and also other proficiencies like eloquence; ability to keep their ideas in front of others; are a little pushy — make the grade of a good leader. At times, if a leader is very sober — although he may understand all the issues — is not quite effective. At times, leaders need to be stubborn and a little overbearing to put their views across or to get the desired result. So, it’s a combination of all these qualities. But, I would still admit,  having interacted with various leaders, that the needed qualities of leadership do not actually match with people who have become leaders.

 

How do you see the differentiation between leaders and politicians?
When you are talking about leaders pre se, you are talking about leaders in any field — the person may be a leader of an NGO, or an organization or a political party. I agree that mostly when you talk about leader, you confuse the term with politician. But, when you are working in a block or a district, it is not only politicians you come across, say, a district secretary of a particular political party or something. It’s not so. Certain times you meet people who are labour union leaders — who are not actually fighting election through a political party. They are representing some interest of the labourer. So, when I talk of leaders I have come across, I categorize them as leaders representing some group or the other and they have interacted with me. Otherwise, there are a lot of leaders in society you never meet. And, yes as an officer, the greater proportion of people whom I meet are politicians.

 

This is a very interesting question. When somebody becomes an officer, the person is selected through some process of examination. When you are selecting a cricket team also, they come through the rigours of Raji Trophy… some selection process. And, at various levels, you talk about the skill and the technique and the training. Various sorts of issues come here. But here is a field where, I think, there is no organized training, there is no organized skill development, there is no test. You can call the ability to get vote during elections some kind of a test, but actually it is not a test, especially in our kind of society where people vote on the basis of caste and religion and certain other issues. Sometimes, people even vote for money. So, if somebody is very rich and can pay off his voters, can get the votes and still may not possess any of these qualities. So, it’s very difficult to ask the question: why are we not getting the required kind of leadership, possessing all the qualities I have already talked about. And, you will have to, I think, wait till your whole system can throw up good people as leaders because the people are not ready to accept anyone less than that. It is very difficult to foresee in the very near future that you will have institutions that can train people who will become block pramukh or fight elections to become an MLA.

I had gone to Singapore a couple of years back. There we met the minister, who was the in-charge of Works and Housing. I was told that he was the Number 2 in Singapore. He was of Tamil-Chinese origin. He was a graduate from Harvard and they said in the 94-member Parliament that they have, the ruling party has 90 seats. And, they said, they decide on who will be made the Works minister even before the candidates are selected. Only after making the decision on who will become the minister, he is given the ticket to fight the election. After he wins the election, he is made the minister. The whole thing is pre-planned and lot of application of mind goes into getting the most suitable person to lead the ministry. They realize the importance of having the right kind of leaders. Such a system if it was in place here (in India) many of the ministers we have now would not have got the chance to hold office. Therefore, I am saying that in a community or a society or in a nation, where people would come to a stage when they realize the importance of the role played by the leaders — how it can change the destiny of the nation, how it can change the destiny of the state — only then you would have good quality people leading the state or the nation. There is a need to devise a process so that people get good leaders.

 

Where would you put the blame for the present leadership crisis?
No I would not blame. That would be too narrow an approach. We are evolving. We have reached a stage from being a very poor nation. We have been exploited by the British and foreign rulers for hundreds of years. After this, we finally got the independence. Now, people are sending their children to school, who are learning. They are fighting poverty, bad health, child mortality. We are slowly and slowly emerging as a strong nation. The average literacy rate is going up; the figure for school dropouts is decreasing… The social indicators, the economic indicators are improving and we are now talking about 9 per cent growth rate. But, it has been a very, very slow pace. And, you can’t rush it through. If one fine day somebody says, “No, I will have a system which throws up best people as leaders”, it cannot happen. And, more so in a democracy where everything has to be decided by the ballot — a person has to be chosen an MP by vote; a person has to be chosen an MLA by vote; the elected representatives have to sit in Parliament or Assembly and pass a law, which, again, has to have the nod of the majority. A classic example I will give you is the provision in the Constitution, which lays down the qualification of an MLA or an MP. The eligibility criteria is 25 years of age, Indian citizen of sound mind, should be bankrupt. But the interesting Clause is D, which says, “Any other qualification, which Parliament may as law lay down.” You will be surprised to know that 55 years down the lane, after the adoption of the Constitution, we have not yet put any qualification. This is because any Parliament, which sits to decide what will be the qualification, will affect many of the sitting members. Suppose, they decide to keep graduation as a qualification criterion, many of the present members would get disqualified. So, you have to get all these reforms done to get the right kind of leaders. It will take time.

 

It’s like this. The caste factor across India plays a role. Generally, if you go much beyond the time when our democracy had come, the caste system was to decide who will be doing what. It was related to his trade or profession. Then it changed to marriage in the same caste. From there, we are at this stage now when we are required to vote. We got our independence and now we are required to go to the polling booth. So, I don’t differentiate (jokingly, I am not going there (the booth) for my daughter’s marriage). That person, whom I am going to vote for, if he becomes an MLA or an MP, will lead not only my caste. Rather, he would be the leader of the area. And, therefore the leader of the area should be the person who is most wise, who is the most honest, who has these leadership qualities. But, this objectivity has not come. I don’t even see it coming in the near future. Caste or religion will continue to be factor — a factor till the people realize the importance of voting for a good leader and not a same caste person. It is a long way from now.

 

Where you go depends on where you come from. Where do our leaders come from and where are they taking the masses? Your thinking response.
Related to this question or issue is the quality of people who are entering politics. You are talking about the kind of leaders who are leading the nation, state or the district. This is a very relevant concern. There is no dearth of learned people, doctors, engineers, professors, and bureaucrats. But, would they allow their children to enter politics? We have to take the blame for this. We see politics from a distance; we say “I have to maintain my distance from politics”. Yet, while you are sitting in the drawing room, you want very good leaders. This cannot work. Unless the people, who are ready to take some risk, come forward, the quality of leadership will not change. We had an exemplary leadership in the pre-independence era because people made sacrifices. There were leaders then who could have made wonderful careers. Take, for instance, Dr Rajendra Prasad. He left his lawyer’s profession. He would have done so well. But, he chose to be in the wilderness, in the jail… He took all the risk while trying to give something to society. So, if such people totally withdraw and only 2 per or 5 per cent are left in the political fray, how can there be a change in the quality of leadership? And, from where are these people coming from? If they are coming from the section of society which is economically and socially deprived, you will have to face the brunt.

How much bearing education has on leadership in your view?
I agree with this that you need not be formally very greatly educated to be a good leader. We have hundreds of examples. People who are just matriculate have been wonderful leaders. But now in 2007, when various kind technological innovations are needed, negotiation skills are required, and you have to understand various complicated issues, then certain amount of good reading and writing skills and the basic ability to understand complex problems are required. Now, if you talk about somebody who is totally uneducated, and say whether he will make for a good leader, that may not hold — despite the person having the potential to become a very good leader. But this potential will not be manifest as a final result because of the limitations of working in the modern times.

 

I don’t think there are any safeguards inbuilt in the system. It’s a free for all. It is very interesting that earlier you had to have only Rs 500 to fight Assembly elections. That was the amount for security deposit. They realized that they would have 200 candidates in one particular parliamentary constituency and it would be very difficult to print even the ballot paper. To stop such huge number of frivolous candidates, the security deposit has now been raised to Rs 10,000. The numbers have gone down, but, I feel, there has to be some system whereby the number is further brought down and only serious candidates contest election. I don’t know how this can be done without infringing on the rights of the people to enter politics and fight an election. That right has also to be protected. But then the system has to be protected from non-serious and frivolous candidates too.

Doesn’t this reflect on the poor leadership that the country still lacks a process to draw better people into the political arena?    
I would not like to comment on poor leadership. It would be very easy from outside to comment on it. A lot of leaders are good. We have leaders who are not very proficient or bright, and most are average. But this is a wrong notion. In all situations, it is the survival of the fittest. So, if you interact with people who have really reached some height, like have a become a minister, you find some of them very bright. They are very bright people, they know how to handle people; they are very good in their people skills. I think they are much better than HR managers and most of your MBA HR graduates. It would be wrong to say that we do not have good quality leadership. But yes, some methods, some policies, some rules and regulations have to be devised whereby we can stop absolute riff-raffs and criminals from entering politics.

Yes, the pace of electoral reforms in the country has not been to the desired level. But, I can assure you that the mind of all the people — especially the Election Commission and others who are concerned about this — is focused on the problem. But there are a lot of handicaps and all rules have to be tested on the altar of constitutionality and democratic freedom. That kind balancing has to be done. So, it’s not that there is no intent or there is no will for electoral reforms. But, things are taking time and electoral reforms can be brought in by laws and regulations. These will also have to come through improvements in education and the weakening of the caste system. But these are very slow processes. We have no option, but to wait.

You have also interacted closely with corporate India, especially during your tenures as Director, Industries, in Bihar and Jharkhand. How do you compare the corporate leadership with the social and political leadership?  

As Director, Industries, in Bihar and later in Jharkhand, I had the opportunity of interacting with a lot corporate leaders from various industrial houses. And, I could see most of them were go-getters. If they needed something — if they wanted a land somewhere or they wanted some clarification on a policy or they needed certain concessions from the government — they came with focus, came prepared and were ready to make a presentation. Also, they were ready to convince you how it is going to help the state ultimately. The came after doing their home work and knew their goal and were ready to talk to anybody who could help them achieve their objective. Most of them had very manageable ego. They know that it is not very easy always to interact with government officers and ministers. But, they came prepared and were ready to at times suffer, I would say, the bureaucratic wall and the very unhelpful attitude from some quarters. They would come and say: “Why don’t you decrease the number of inspectors who visit the factories and get away from this inspector raj?” You will be surprised to know that as many as 72 inspectors from various departments visited some of these factories. These inspectors would visit them twice a month or four times a month. They were keeping the industrialists busy and hampering their growth. Jokingly, I remember at a meeting, the chief secretary said that let’s make a rule that all inspectors visit the factory premises only during Diwali. This was said jokingly, but what I am trying to say is that an industrialist has to interact with various government departments and has to be nice to so many of them. So, the corporate guys were very result-oriented go-getters with no ego problems. And, most of them got results — as good results as they could.

This quality I saw in only one MLA who worked with me in Jehanabad. He was sure that he has to get a project implemented. He would go to the engineer’s house and get the estimate prepared in two days. Then he would sit with the chota babu and the bada babu and then he would come to my chamber with this information that “Mr District Magistrate the file is lying next to you, ready in all respects. Please sign it or forward it to the state government. ” I will tell you the result of this kind of vigorous pursuance of a go-getter leader. He has never lost an election in the last 30 years. And, he has always won with huge margins. The rival political parties don’t know how to defeat him and he gets votes cutting across caste lines. So, if some politicians, who can change the constituency like Baramati in Maharashtra, he/she can win elections without even going to the people.

 

The corporate kind of leadership is also there in the political field. But there are very few such leaders.

 

We must have hope, we must be positive, we must not bend the rules ourselves or bribe somebody to bend the rules for you — even if it means coming across a little hardship. And, slowly and slowly things will improve.