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Old leaders

Timeri N. Murari

ADMITTEDLY, I was a bit envious watching the results of the British general elections. Mr Tony Blair won, of course. Despite his years in office, he still looks young, eager, and dynamic. Even the Conservative Party leader, Mr William Hague, though a dro ne, certainly looked as if he could **get a few things done, given the chance.

Mr Blair won because he focussed on the essentials to improve British society -- education, health and infrastructure. He did not waffle on about the euro and race, as did the Tories. The Tories were all rhetoric. Mr Blair knew what was important.

When has India or even a state ever had a young, dynamic, eager leader? I cannot think of one. Okay, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Chandrababu Naidu, looks a possible young leader, but even he looks harassed most of the time and is too preoccupie d with his hi-tech vision of a rural society.

The rest of our leaders all look unhealthy, old and weary. They are overweight too, and power has sort of immured their faces in aspic. Passion is the very last emotion I would ever attribute to any of them. They look totally self-serving and so smug too . If I were any politician's public relations man, I would advise him never to appear on television. Television exposes their true characters beneath the veneer of their bland smiles. We know that, as we listen to them, they haven't the faintest idea of what they are talking about. They out shout each other, even as they hurl things at each other in the Lok Sabha or the Legislative Assemblies.

Mr Tony Blair was the youngest Prime Minister, since William Pitt and the first Labour leader in 100 years to get a second term. He has made the history books. I suspect that was his ambition; he wanted the history books to remember him

with the same respect as Pitt.

Our leaders only wish to be remembered by their bankbooks. That is, if they do have bankbooks in this country. Education, health and infrastructure are the farthest from their minds. The only way they also want to be remembered is to have a street named after them or else get a statue put up in some small dusty town.

Even if Hague had won the election, there would have been very little change in the way Britain is administered. The bureaucracy makes it own appointments with no interference from the politicians. The police force functions quite independently from the political set up. They all remain in position, even as once our own ICS remained at their desks, serving each new master with the same degree of detachment.

The moment our politicians scramble back onto the gaddi or even mount it for the first time, their knee-jerk reaction is to transfer everyone, bureaucrats and police, in sight. I am never sure what that achieves, except a sullen bureaucracy and an equall y sullen police force. They are not going to stick their necks out for the incumbent, knowing that in five years he/she could be thrown out of power by electorate.

And any programme or scheme created by the out going party are promptly cancelled. So, for every step forward Indian society takes, our politicians force us back five steps. I guess they all have frail egos, apart from being jealous of any good works don e by the outgoing party.

I am only surprised that they only dismantle schemes and programmes. I am sure that soon they will start dismantling any infrastructure built up by the outgoing party. Any day now we will hear that all bridges, roads, flyovers, lanes, buildings construct ed by the outgoing party will be dismantled forthwith. It is always easier to demolish than to build. A few

sticks of dynamite and in no time at all, the ruling party can raze all the past glories of its predecessor. Most conquering armies do that as a matter of practice. They raze great buildings and topple statues. Even Lenin and Stalin were pulverised from their heroic stature on pedestals around Soviet Russia to so much metal junk.

This should make for a very interesting exercise as each party vies to erase all trace of progress made by the previous ruling party. I see first the bridges going, then the roads, then the dams and power stations, then the airports and railway stations.

With each successive government, we will start going backwards faster and faster. We may pause in 1947 but that will not deter our politicians. Their ambition will be to take us back to the Stone Age. Or else, some glorious age which they spout on about and which never ever really existed. There is nothing to stop them. If they can drag us back by a couple of years each time power changes, why not drag us back to those pre-British days and then even back to Asoka?