The early years of the UPA fused political economy and democratic - TopicsExpress



          

The early years of the UPA fused political economy and democratic rights into a coherent vision for a decent society. The pity is that they were unable to sustain it. The NAC had the right hunches but was not backed by the political will to follow them through. Instead, India was presided over by a triptych of figures—Singh, and Sonia and Rahul Gandhi—that reminded one of the business theorist Peter Drucker’s distinction between a leader and a manager: a manager does things right, but a leader does the right things. If Singh was a manager, Sonia, as head of the Congress, was supposed to be the leader; Rahul was the leader in waiting, but was learning to be a manager. Each was affected by his or her own form of aphasia: Sonia Gandhi sounded like an empty mask, with her alien, disjointed Hindi; Singh had a tight-lipped indifference, though it masqueraded as immaculate innocence; and Rahul read Shakespeare as if it were a Noddy drama. This turned out to be critical, even fatal, because the UPA’s failure was one not only of achievement, but also of storytelling. In Perspectives, Shiv Visvanathans obituary for the ten years of the UPA.
Posted on: Mon, 12 May 2014 07:50:21 +0000

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