In Search of a Good Leader

Vasu Reddy From Chicago
vasureddy@aol.com

Time has come for India and Indians to look for a good leader who will lead the nation to greater heights to satisfy the populations demand for better everything in the country.  From the village level to the metropolis, high raises to slums, from children to the very old, the educated to the rural folks, everyone is looking for a leader who will work on the people’s agenda rather than the master of the next scam.  For a country of some 1.2 billion, we must have a few good leaders we can find, but for some reason the country is suffering from the lack of a strong and democratically ideological leader who is not involved in any scam, but just lead the country into the next cycle of prosperity.

If we simply add-up the losses incurred by the country because of mismanagement of its resources the country would have had enough resources to provide education, transportation, telecommunications, rural development, basic facilities for all people and enough money for world-class (better best of the world) infrastructure without adding and new taxes or burden on the general population.  Sadly the money is going into a few people’s bank accounts in tax havens or being spent on getting reelected to government.

The magnitude of taking the money into pockets is so huge that the counting the zeros in any currency cannot be fathomed.  People are being caught and sent to jail, but so far none of the money has been recovered and brought back into the government coffers.  There are large numbers thrown out in public as losses to the exchequer but so far no money has been recovered that has been added to the national spending.

All political parties including the ruling and opposition parties at national level and state and local levels are all pointing fingers at each other, and everyone has some taint of impropriety attached to them.  Everyone is screaming about the other’s scams but no action is taken to bring the money back into the government or reclaim the lost resources.  Except making a huge deal about this in public and parliament, no concrete action is being taken to get the money back into the public.  The greatest misuse of resources is spoken about for a long time, but except hurling insults and referring to CBI and sending some of them to Tihar, nothing is done to get the money back from the miscreants.

In YSR AP had a leader who was forceful in implementation of programs that were popular and industrial and infrastructure development that was needed by the state.  Until his accidental death and for some time after he was hailed as the great leader who provided leadership for implementation of both populist and strong decisions that progressively affected the state and was a benchmark for the national leadership.  Since his death and a few months after, and when his son became a difficult nit to crack for the national leadership, he all of a sudden became a point of contention as someone who doled out favors for his son’s benefit.  It is tragic to first associate great leadership while alive and in death the exact opposite.  Politically the reaction of the public will never reconcile with the center that project its own image as a party that first enjoys the power of an individual leader while alive and tarnish it when he is dead.

The country needs a few good leaders who are not in for the money nor get elected, but for serving the country.  There is no individual benefit except the value of public service, and there is no need for money power but only the power of the people.  As a true and largest democracy the country needs a new breed of leaders, and India needs them now.  There is no immediate or magic trick to find someone, but the nation needs to embrace the faithful services of a true leader.  Only when people are able to welcome the leadership without the taint of money, rather with the vision of future that is full of promise of independence, we would have truly become a democracy and will see true prosperity that is becoming of a great nation.