Dear sangom,
I do find sravana’s proposal ‘revolutionary’, but ‘brilliant’? I do not know, as we tambrams tend to overuse this term. By definition, I am yet to find a tambram who is not termed ‘brilliant’ for something or the other. So along those lines, I will go along for the ‘brilliancy’ bit.
There are two aspects I would like to present: one is good governance. To me it is the same as good management. ‘management’ is a skillset, some of which can be learned, but personally I feel, some of which is intrinsic. Which is why a primary school drop out like kamaraj could do great things, while an oxford educated Nehru, along with his coterie of oxford educated economists of the planning commission, could destroy our economy. From which, 47 years after jawahar’s death, we are still trying to recover.
Sravana might have the likes of Singapore or japan in his mind. May be not. Singapore is a city state, small in population, compact, strategically situated, with an overwhelming Chinese work ethic. To me this means it is programmed for success a la hong kong or Taiwan. Japan, is the largest homogeneous society in the world, trapped in a small landmass. Thus, over centuries they have evolved into a society of public accommodation through well defined concept of hierarchical behaviour. I think, there are no leaders in japan, but only groups of well intentioned followers, all thinking along the same lines. Which is why they are great technologists, but not so great innovators like the Americans, whose society based on individuality, is an antithesis of japan.
Sravana could be thinking of china, which to us, peeking through the clouds of censorship and restrictions, appears to be a dream of a technocrat lead society. Again here, the Han Chinese are a overwhelming majority, and I personally believe, that china will eventually pay for its sins of omission re environment, private property and above all human rights. So great is the paranoia of the Chinese government, news of Egypt or libya, is simply not available to the Chinese aam aadmi.
An oft quoted management phrase, is the peter’s principle, that ‘in an hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence’. Per sravana, as I see it, we are going to hand over the administration of the country to a bunch of guys, who in their respective fields have reached ‘incompetency’. largely due to their one track minds honed by their speciality.
(I will not even go into the selection process, which can be a thread in itself). we will have a great engineer, doctor but many economists, because there are so many schools of thinking here. Same goes with psychologists, after all we need to consider the mental health of the nation too. I see our country ending up with confusion as the ‘brilliant ones’ vie with each other to run rough shod a programme, which may have nothing useful for the common man, for he is not represented in this group.
The beauty of a democracy is that there is constant feedback. Unabashed feedback. There is the concept of ‘opposition parties’ who always keep the ruling clique on its toes.
I think, we in india, need to separate the corruption from good governance. Both can exist side by side. You might remember pratap singh kairon, who single handedly brought Punjab to prosperity. He was also among the most corrupt politicians, ultimately losing his life, to cheated opponents, in Nepal, I think. Tamil nadu, has two corrupt leaders, MK & J, but both of them have the governance skills, which is why, tamil nadu, with few natural resources, paltry amount of rain has been able to move up in ranks among the prosperous states since the death of MGR. we can afford the corruption as long as there is good governance. india has hope. our politicians masters in skills of many trades. it is just that we need more of them possessing good governance skills.
Sorry for the ramble, but I hope, somewhere in this post, is the answer to your query, and to what I think of srvana’s proposal. Thank you.
