Modi and Mian: Will Both Make or Mar Their Countries? - 2
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
“I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth; but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments that produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people ..” - Nelson Mandela in his autobiography, Long Walk in Freedom.
Full one year got wasted in taking “the First Step” in the right direction, as is claimed by the PM and his finance minister. He claims to be a transformational PM, but he appears to be a ditto of what he was in his earlier two stints of premiership, a situational and reactionary leader, responding to situations as and when they crop up. Any good manager can do that.
True transformational leadership does not allow “Swarms of wasps” to feast on your problems. Horn-locking with the army; soft on terrorism; delaying action when needed; ignoring peoples’ miseries and undertaking foreign tours; employing close kith and kin and grooming them for dynastic politics (the story is that about 22 of them hold powerful portfolios), avoiding bold but unpleasant decisions fearing public reaction, are not the signs of an effective and functional leader.
Some of his ministers needed to be shown the exit door, but loyalty, rather than performance, counts more in his fiefdom. He did identify the challenges but he could not regulate them, nor could he prioritize them. People voted for him for a change. It is no music to the public ears to hear his ministers telling that it is not a month’s, or year’s job. He collected around him the trite stuff. While he should have requested, cajoled and even forced his worst adversities of merit and quality to join hands with him in tackling the problems, he chose to play the world-cup with the players of his previous two-time teams. Can he show one fresh, brilliant, creative and world famous economist or administrator in his team. Both brothers could work miracles as both had been in power longer than most in Pakistan in the civilian setup. The result is obvious.
Most of the members of his team, including him as well, act uncreatively, more or less like a thermometer and not like a thermostat. A thermometer just records, and relays and tells what the temperature is. A patient is more interested in the cure, and not in the nature of the disease. Why should the poor, insecure and deprived people of Pakistan hear a tale of their miseries narrated to them by his well-dressed and rich ministers? It is like telling Einstein what physics is. His ministers act like a thermometer, or like a weather man who just keeps predicting and often keeps telling lies and yet gets paid. A thermometer is not instrumental in bringing about the desired changes, because it has no inner capacity or mechanism to do so. It is the thermostat that can bring the temperature up or down, but only if there is a hand that can set it so. When Pakistan’s big cities like Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur can be shut down at will by one section of people because their leader living in a foreign country got booked on money-laundering charges, it reflects an alarming situation.
Army officers get killed just outside Islamabad; a woman gets stoned to death in broad daylight in the High Court yard. 10% accomplishment under the circumstances is not laudable. A flywheel needs lots of effort in the first few pushes; later it takes on its own and conserves energy. The same is true of leadership. The problem with a wildebeest, an animal of the size of a small bull, is that in the wake of dire danger, it runs and then stops, and begins to look back to see how far the chasing cheetah is, just with vacant and impassioned eyes. Even the wild predator chasing him feels sorry for his lack of full-throttle effort.
Gone are the days when leadership was styled as something in-born; or when it was restricted to one lone genius; or it was deemed as something charismatic; or even autocratic. These are mere myths now.
Mody: The modifier
Sometimes natural calamities and disasters produce just theatrical results in the form of actio- oriented leaders. The floods of 2009 and 2010, combined with the inner problems of law and order, terrorism and power shortage, etc. offered ideal opportunities to the PPP government in Pakistan to register its name in the annals of history. They wasted this God-sent opportunity of public service in the silliest possible way. Total neglect with the main leader remaining on foreign tours was its response. Modi defines the contours of new leadership.
Modi is the product of disasters, natural or man-made. He en-cashed the earthquake of 2001 and the riots of 2002 most effectively. His biggest gains came from the areas where communal violence had been worst. He shows no qualms and no regrets for the Muslims’ massacre. But Indians equate him with aspiration and value him for his sterling performance. His biggest hamartia(fault that can lead to a downfall) is that he is referred to as divisive and abrasive and coercive.
To be the principal of an elementary school is one thing; but to be the VC of a famous university is another. Cactus does not grow inside, and indoor plants do not prosper outside in the sun. Indians have taken a big risk by betting on him . His three-term tenure as CM, Gujarat, however, endorses that he can be trusted. Indians desperately needed change, and perhaps they have made the right choice, if viewed from their angle. We in Pakistan often wish for change, talk about change, but hardly ever vote for a change. We end up then sticking with status quo. We may change shirts, wives , jobs and cars, but we love to keep 60’s and 70’s model leaders. It is neither our fate nor it is designed so by God. It is a self-inflicted curse that we shall never change our leaders. In such circumstances you need a strong man with a heavy hammer that takes every problem as a nail and does not hesitate in hitting it hard. President Obama used this analogy to justify his non-intervention policy. India and Pakistan need a firm hand when it comes to handling the social problems at home. Leaders made of wax, or leaders who are pliable and elastic like rubber, or at worst, who are like fluid that assumes every shape it is poured in, multiply peoples’ problems. They can never be a solution. I may hate Modi, but I love his style, his performance, his zest to deliver, and his intense hatred for the dullards. We also read that he possesses in ample amount that rare stuff which is called “honesty”. Lucky are those people who can see a face studded on the shoulders of a leader who is honest and is not corrupt. Sitting on the peak of job-ladder, may be, Modi is able to see better and afar, and realize that sincerity to one’s religion - Hinduism, Islam, Christianity or Bhudhism - demands respect for humanism. A cruel man can never be a true follower of his religion, whatever it may be. Getting closer to God means getting closer to people, and Muslims are his fellow Indians.
Fareed Zakaria says that elections are reactions, and often the negative ones, and this explains “Modi’s breath-taking rise”. “He is charismatic, intense, utterly decisive…”. He is action-packed. He lives in a state of celibacy; he did not invite any of his relatives in the inauguration; he empowered his ministers to take the decisions on merit; he forbade them to employ their relatives as personal secretaries and assistants, but to select them from the “staff pool”; he created a new state of India, the 29 th state over night; he has already struck fear in the corrupt and inefficient officials.
Our Mian Sahib took months to fill in the slots of his cabinet. Many important ambassadorial posts are still vacant. The shortage, perhaps, is not of competent people. Only he has run short of his near relatives.
Modi is fully aware of why Congress fell on its face. It had failed to create jobs; it had made no efforts to ease labor laws; it had failed to control inflation (over 8%); budget deficit had remained un-tackled; onion prices did the ultimate damage as did Pranab Mukherjee as FM by attacking the investors with retrospective taxes. India will see a lot in the next sixty days under Modi.
How will Modi modify India? He is an acknowledged good administrator. He is strict and severe. He gives the responsibility and the target and the leverage and demands results. He is mercilessly blunt. He proved his worth by bringing Gujarat to give China-like growth. Since he is hardnosed and abrasive, and divisive, he is likely to counter much grumblings, and perhaps sooner than expected. Only tangible and palpable positive changes would mull such voices.
According to Guruswamy, who knows him personally, he is “a right wing authoritarian with a corporate friendly vision. India is boisterously democratic… how a hard liner Hindu Nationalist handles Muslims and the minorities would be his biggest challenge. Gujarat prospered on the cult of his personality. Will India, diverse as it is, swallow the personality culture, especially when it could not digest anymore the cult of the Nehru family? Ten years ago Gujarat had 50,000 crores loan from World Bank; today it has deposited 1 lac crore in the World Bank. Gujarat has the least crime rate; once it was the most unsafe state. Now it has even a health card for the animals. He has a personal staff of three. Well, all this is wonderful. How he deals with Pakistan and how soon he stops showing Pakistan “iske Auqat”, its worth, would be his another big test.
Handal is not very wrong when he says, “Tensions (communal) are not the relic of the past. Only last year in September, more than 60 got killed and tens of thousands got displaced in religious riots in the Muzaffargarh district of UP, and most of them were Muslims." According to Sharat Pawar, the chief of the Nationalist party, NCP uses a crude analogy when he says, “The BJP PM, Mr Narender Modi is 'like a groom in hurry' ”. He is riding a huge elephant, India, and the elephant has a tendency to go for instant gratification. Little loose directions and emotions on the part of the rider, Modi, can turn the docile animal into a wild, destructive beast. How Modi avoids this danger of having a joy-ride on a huge animal will become clear, not in years, but in months. His good performance in India would be a vicariously great gift to the people of Pakistan. It would make things very hard for the leadership in Pakistan.
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