SHASHI ON SUNDAY: The nation needs principled youngsters

For a few weeks now I have tried tokeep my promise to regularly cite and respond to readers' reactions, but I haveto admit that the quantity and flow of mail has been a bit overwhelming and thepressure of events has all-too-often diverted me to other topics. This week,though, I would like to address the concerns of those readers who have writtenin about two of my columns that touched on political leadership - one on June 22about the extraordinary number of Harvard and Yale men amongst recent USpresidential nominees, by contrast with the general level of educationalattainment amongst politicians in our country, and the other on August 24 aboutthe difference between the American and Indian publics' expectations regardingthe moral behaviour of their politicians.I'll skip those who hadcomplimentary things to say about either column and react instead to thecorrespondents who were critical of aspects of the two pieces. Their criticismsseemed to coalesce around the broad charge of elitism: was I suggesting that theproducts of Ivy League colleges were somehow better suited to rule the ignorantmasses than less educated politicians with their fingers on the pulse of thepeople? Similarly, in noting that thinking Indians routinely have lowerexpectations of politicians than they do of themselves or their friends, was isneering at the lower classes? Were my articles, as one emailer implied,symptomatic of the detachment the privileged elite who read (and write for) theTimes of India feel from the daily struggles of Indians for political change andtransformation?On the contrary: I need only point to my IndependenceDay piece (August 17) in which I decried "the strange spectacle of a nationwithout nationals, of Indians who are not involved in India." Lamenting theabsence of a "sense of belonging" to a larger idea of India, I made thepassionate point, in an article I had published 33 Independence Days ago, thatyoung educated Indians had to care, and needed to be involved in what became ofour independence. Repeating these words today is not merely indulging innostalgia; it is to lament the abdication by the Indian educated classes of ourpolitical responsibility for our own destiny.My generation grew upin an India where a vast gulf separated those who went into the professions orthe civil services, and those who entered politics. The latter, at the risk ofsimplifying things a bit, were either at the very top or the very bottom: eithermaharajahs or big zamindars with a feudal hold on the allegiances of the votersin their districts, or semi-literate 'lumpens' with little to lose who got intopolitics as their only means of self-advancement. If you belonged to neithercategory, you studied hard, took your exams, and made a success of your life onmerit - and you steered clear of politics as an activity for those "otherpeople". But the problem with that approach - while completelyunderstandable in a highly competitive society where the salaried middle-classrarely enjoyed the luxury of being able to take the kind of risks that apolitical life implied - was that it left out of Indian politics the very groupof people that are the mainstay of politics in other democracies. Around theworld, the educated taxpaying middle-classes are normally the ones who bringvalues and convictions to a country's politics, and who have the most directstake in questions of what government can and cannot do. Across Europe, forinstance, it's people from the middle-class who make up the bulk of theactivists, voters and candidates for political office. But in India, this grouphas neither the time for activism (they're too busy doing professional jobs tomake ends meet) nor the money or the votes to count in politics: the money flowsat the top, and the votes, in our stratified society, lie at the bottom, wherethe numbers are. So they abstain from the process, and all too often look at itwith disdain. In turn, our politics becomes more populist, aiming at the lowestcommon denominator (since that's who the voters are assumed to be). No wonderthere is so much disenchantment amongst ordinary people with the processes ofour democracy, such cynicism about the lack of principle amongst ourpoliticians, and such surprise in learning of an honest politician (because weroutinely expect the opposite). Some even speak of the "secession of the elites"from the politics of India.Can this state of affairs continueindefinitely? No - and it probably won't, as the country's economictransformation brings more and more people into the middle-class, which will oneday reach the point where its numbers will indeed begin to matter in elections.We already have, in the current Parliament, several educated and bright youngprofessionals of the kind of background that for many years previously would nothave been found in politics - people with good degrees, a national vision,international experience, intelligent ideas and the capacity to articulate them.It doesn't matter that a significant proportion of them are the sons ofpoliticians: the fact that they are in Parliament brings a different standard tobear on the quality of our politics. As they change the public's expectations ofwhat a politician should be like, they should be joined by many others ofsimilar qualifications but with no political background. In that, eventually,will lie our democracy's salvation.So my message to youngmiddle-class Indians who actually have principles and ideals is this: notgetting involved in politics is a cop-out. The nation needs you. The Nobellaureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, speaking of South Africa, once said he hopedhis country would get leaders the people could look up to, "not people we haveto keep finding excuses for." If well-educated Indians want a return to an erawhen our country's political leadership was full of people whom the nationadmired, they will have to enter the fray themselves. Otherwise, all too often,we will have to pay allegiance to people we need to find excuses for.