There is a very touching video of the King and Queen of Spain getting off their car and approaching a group playing and listening to music with the audience sitting on stools and using them as percussion instruments. The King too sat and joined in playing to the beat without any of their bodyguards, with the Queen on the next stool enjoying the music. It was one of the greatest lessons in leadership because it was spontaneous, and not for a purpose or an occasion.
It is a simple expression of full-blooded joy and happiness of being an ordinary being, a common being, and a simple being. Here you earn the highest amount of respect, and fortune, which is countless times more valuable than wealth.
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When public figures travel in cycles or buy fruit from local vendors, when they want electoral attention, these are staged shows. Do they earn the greatest respect? It’s something to think about. Every nation has its foundation built on integrity and trust of the people and the people, they choose to represent them.
Each year there is so much attention paid to the richest in India, Asia, and the world, with one fluctuation in the market, they gain or lose billions of dollars pushing them up and down the rich list.
But suppose the world has a list of the topmost people in terms of trust and integrity. That list might look very different. A list that would not have numbers, because such people are priceless. President APJ Abdul Kalam would be on that list with his biggest assets – simplicity, honesty and integrity. His most prized possessions were his books. Atal Bihari Vajpayee did become India’s Prime Minister but he was universally loved as a poet, writer, and orator but above all a person who spoke of and lived by the idea of Raj Dharma or duty towards your nation.
Meanwhile, there are many wealth earners but there are a few special wealth creators. They are those who distribute wealth for the upliftment of society across generations helping so many to become self-sufficient and wealth creators themselves. Ratan Tata and Azim Premji are two such diamonds India has, who possess fortune which is far more than numbers. Their legacy is trust and integrity.
Are we choosing this kind of leadership across fields and sectors? Are these factors for governance now? Or is it all about what is it for me? What’s my deal?
Isn’t it true that earlier we chose better persons to represent us and lead us? After all who we chose is also a reflection of who we are. Before people were not educated and yet they voted for people with the utmost integrity and honesty. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Abdul Kalam and Satya Pal Malik and A K Antony came from that stable.
This was so refreshingly different from wealth-infused public service with representatives chosen by people with personal greed
Wealth can be spent by anyone, but when a public figure spends an inordinate amount, it is not wrong to ask for the antecedents of that money. Will Chamber captains who are travelling
the world feasting on Turkey, ever ask
these questions?
The irony is now there are far more educated voters who should be asking the right questions. But are they electing leaders with integrity at any level? So can you blame education or the lack of it for the choice of leaders? Selfish choices are made based on personal greed even and mostly by the educated.
Very often you hear people saying, “I want this party to win”, but do they ask what has that party done for the State? And when choices are made according to what the party can do for you personally and not for the land then you have streets full of sewage, and roads that are continuously dug by different agencies ruining cities and making them vulnerable to impending disasters and accidents. You then have high power tariffs, acres of crop damaged due to debris and construction, depleting hills and forests, a land where more than half the youth have left for foreign shores due to lack of opportunity, and at home, opportunities to develop skills and start lucrative trades in villages on merit has become impossible without connections.
Why do people who vote based on how they benefit then ask for the responsible press to report on public issues?
When they have chosen those who govern them, the press can’t sort them out. The responsible press will do its job independently anyway, but it can’t get your roads fixed or gutters cleaned by those you have chosen for your own benefits.
People truly get what they deserve. One can recount an incident narrated by a friend who explained this differently. A group of travellers sought recommendations to go on a short holiday. The agent suggested and then booked them for a destination. When they left, the friend asked the agent why he recommended a more expensive and unpleasant destination when cheaper and more enjoyable international destinations were available, the agent said, “If people want to eat dirt you give them dirt. The pig will love only its favourite food.” Similarly if one may add; you will get sewage as it’s flowing in Panjim and other places now.
Moreover, when such political entities are formed, they get the confidence to rule over all institutions, including institutions of faith. Credible and age-old institutions of faith are being told by elected entities who want messages to be given and the political narrative spread. These are institutions under whose tutelage some of the finest educational institutions and centres of learning have been established all over the country, giving to the nations people like even Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
What is the lesson that we learn from this?
Quite simply, when you chose people, for selfish personal reasons and not for what they can truly continue for the benefit of the land, the system and its institutions get jaundiced.
Integrity is not something you can buy or acquire on an all-expenses-paid trip. Integrity comes from a certain class and belongs to a certain class of both people and leaders. Integrity elects integrity. When we have a failed greed-based system it is clear that neither the electors nor the elected have that vital ingredient. You then get what you deserve.
