'संघे शक्ति कलौ युगे'
I read the above quote in some context (I have forgotten the context now) when I was a child and had just begun to study Sanskrit as a part of my curriculum. I could never really grasp its meaning or significance beyond the rhetoric of 'strength lies in unity'.
But, this quote seems to assume rather new meanings in today's context. It seems to tell me that we no more need the much celebrated quality of leadership. Well, in order to delve further into the argument, it is imperative to define leadership. To be honest I have not bothered to find out the academic or dictionary definitions of the term. But is there an all-encompassing definition of leadership that exists? I doubt it.
As a child, a leader for me was a person in power or trying to assume power. The one who gave speeches during elections and huge crowds gathered to hear him (it was usually 'him'). I myself sat as a seven year old with my grandfather in the front row of such crowds and listened to Laloo Prasad on the first day and Murli Manohar Joshi on the very next day. These people who appeared on televisions and newspapers were standing there in the local football ground in Gomoh. No wonder crowds gathered, just to watch them raise their fists in the air and shout slogans (I obviously do not remember what those slogans were). In Laloo's case, however, it was the helicopter that pulled greater numbers.
After coming back from such election rallies my grandfather used to tell me stories about the leaders he saw in person when he was a child. He told me about a dark lady who was fluent in several languages and when she made speeches, the crowds fell silent. He also told me that those leaders were loved, so loved that the train compartment in which my grandfather was travelling fell silent when these words were announced on radio - 'अभी-अभी किसी पागल ने बापू को गोली मार दी है'. My grandmother says she was cutting vegetables in the aangan and her knife fell down when she heard the news. Nobody had food that day.
See, leadership was already a confusing concept. But, it got really muddled when I attended the leadership camp organised by Rotary club at the age of around fourteen, where I was told that anybody could be a leader. It could be a doctor who treated patients, a teacher who taught students, an engineer who built bridges...so on and so forth. I don't remember if they distinguished between non-leader doctors, teachers and engineers and the ones who were leaders. But, yes the whole aim of this exercise was to make us 'realize' that we all needed to seek leaders within us. As I grew up, I found countless such leadership development programmes, in colleges, at workplace. Leadership training is a profession for many. I wonder what teachers do nowadays in schools and colleges! There are books that talk about it, but strangely I have never seen the authors of these books anywhere else other than the books' cover pages. I wonder if Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Lenin wrote such books and offered a calculated recipe to become a leader.
The futility of this concept struck me when I started working with rural women who were organised into Self-Help-Groups by the NGOs. Yes, these women needed the NGOs to market their products, for they did not know the rules of the market (I doubt if the NGOs did). But, I could see the mute protest in their eyes and their demeanor when an 'outsider' told them to do the job in a 'certain' way; the job they had been doing all their life. And moreover, these outsiders claimed the lion's share of the profits as well. I could also see them protest, in not so mute ways, when someone among them assumed leadership roles and tried to tilt the balance of power.
The point is whether it is business leadership or political leadership, a 'leader' makes sense when there are followers to follow him/her. With the growing cynicism towards leaders on one hand and every second person being moulded into a 'leader' on the other hand, I wonder if we need leadership at all. Don't we need collective efforts for an inclusive growth instead? And don't we simply need good intentions? A little love and a lot of selflessness. Well, the nuances of the latter call for yet another discussion altogether...
I read the above quote in some context (I have forgotten the context now) when I was a child and had just begun to study Sanskrit as a part of my curriculum. I could never really grasp its meaning or significance beyond the rhetoric of 'strength lies in unity'.
But, this quote seems to assume rather new meanings in today's context. It seems to tell me that we no more need the much celebrated quality of leadership. Well, in order to delve further into the argument, it is imperative to define leadership. To be honest I have not bothered to find out the academic or dictionary definitions of the term. But is there an all-encompassing definition of leadership that exists? I doubt it.
As a child, a leader for me was a person in power or trying to assume power. The one who gave speeches during elections and huge crowds gathered to hear him (it was usually 'him'). I myself sat as a seven year old with my grandfather in the front row of such crowds and listened to Laloo Prasad on the first day and Murli Manohar Joshi on the very next day. These people who appeared on televisions and newspapers were standing there in the local football ground in Gomoh. No wonder crowds gathered, just to watch them raise their fists in the air and shout slogans (I obviously do not remember what those slogans were). In Laloo's case, however, it was the helicopter that pulled greater numbers.
After coming back from such election rallies my grandfather used to tell me stories about the leaders he saw in person when he was a child. He told me about a dark lady who was fluent in several languages and when she made speeches, the crowds fell silent. He also told me that those leaders were loved, so loved that the train compartment in which my grandfather was travelling fell silent when these words were announced on radio - 'अभी-अभी किसी पागल ने बापू को गोली मार दी है'. My grandmother says she was cutting vegetables in the aangan and her knife fell down when she heard the news. Nobody had food that day.
See, leadership was already a confusing concept. But, it got really muddled when I attended the leadership camp organised by Rotary club at the age of around fourteen, where I was told that anybody could be a leader. It could be a doctor who treated patients, a teacher who taught students, an engineer who built bridges...so on and so forth. I don't remember if they distinguished between non-leader doctors, teachers and engineers and the ones who were leaders. But, yes the whole aim of this exercise was to make us 'realize' that we all needed to seek leaders within us. As I grew up, I found countless such leadership development programmes, in colleges, at workplace. Leadership training is a profession for many. I wonder what teachers do nowadays in schools and colleges! There are books that talk about it, but strangely I have never seen the authors of these books anywhere else other than the books' cover pages. I wonder if Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Lenin wrote such books and offered a calculated recipe to become a leader.
The futility of this concept struck me when I started working with rural women who were organised into Self-Help-Groups by the NGOs. Yes, these women needed the NGOs to market their products, for they did not know the rules of the market (I doubt if the NGOs did). But, I could see the mute protest in their eyes and their demeanor when an 'outsider' told them to do the job in a 'certain' way; the job they had been doing all their life. And moreover, these outsiders claimed the lion's share of the profits as well. I could also see them protest, in not so mute ways, when someone among them assumed leadership roles and tried to tilt the balance of power.
The point is whether it is business leadership or political leadership, a 'leader' makes sense when there are followers to follow him/her. With the growing cynicism towards leaders on one hand and every second person being moulded into a 'leader' on the other hand, I wonder if we need leadership at all. Don't we need collective efforts for an inclusive growth instead? And don't we simply need good intentions? A little love and a lot of selflessness. Well, the nuances of the latter call for yet another discussion altogether...
i loved it.. infact was working on a leadership module and u provided me another insight :)
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