An Obama in India?

 

I am reading the wonderful book by former American president Barack Obama titled ‘A promised land’. It’s his story told with honesty and intelligence. One is astounded with how much he remembers and how literary he can be at times. Obama is one politician who impresses, who gives hope that principles can still have a seat in the murky train of politics. That not all politics is about status quo and bumping fists with Machiavelli. That power can sit in the lap of someone who genuinely wants to make the world a better place. And most importantly of someone who can speak the truth and accept their own weaknesses and faults.

One then immediately thinks of whether India can have an Obama like politician. Someone who is an outsider, someone who feels the pulse of the people, has principles he or she follows, and someone who has risen up from the ground with sheer talent. Nothing is impossible so one cannot rule it out. But then there is the gut feeling that it will never happen. Not because people as talented as him are not present in the country but because people like him will either never join politics or will never rise up if they join.

I am not a political expert but I don’t think I need to be to come to this conclusion. In today’s India, to rise to power at the center, you either have to be a Muslim hating Indian or a bootlicking one. You have to have the knack of looking over the gross incompetencies of the system in addition to able to praise the status quo reinforcing the existing incompetencies. If you want to rise up, you have to bend down. Close your heart, take unfair sides, tell lies, until you are an expert in all of this. Till you reach the top which in our country would be at the age of probably more than 60, you have become a person who does not instill any hope to the fair and just but only to the cronies and the greedy.

What will happen to Obama if he was born in India? He would probably go to an IIT and then go to the promised land to live a life of hard work and comfort. He would have in his youth sensed the futility of making an effort here. He would hope that some day his children will learn the values of the constitution of the most powerful country in the world. And bring some change where change can actually take place.

I know it is getting too negative of my own country. Everything cannot be so bad. And it is not. There is our rich culture to talk about. About the many achievements, about democracy, about pluralism, about the colours of festivals and about the many examples of brotherhood and sisterhood. About humanity. It is true. It is not that bad, some people would say. But why then it does not instill that confidence? Why then we have more Obama’s rather than sons and daughters of politicians, read from abroad, uninspiring, compliant, without any flair?

Maybe there are examples of Obama like politicians. Maybe I don’t know. Maybe it is actually not that bad. Or maybe it is. There are so many maybe’s. An Obama in India is needed, this is something I can say with certainty. Someone who calls a spade a spade and steps up on the tempo. One can solve so many problems of this country if one Obama can come across. Problems which are crying to be solved but have been kept on the docks just because the people who are responsible are not interested. Or are just plain incompetent. So, an Obama please!