Indian leaders tend to be simpletons & mediocrities. Manmohan Singh was
named Underachiever of 2012 in Time Magazine. Morarji Desai prided
himself on drinking his own urine.
Most are intellectually bankrupt, except perhaps Nehru and that too
because he was educated in Britain.
In contrast, earlier East & SE Asian leaders were philosopher-statesmen,
such Chou-en Lai (China), Lee Kwan Yu (Singapore) and Ho Chi Minh
(Vietnam).
A big surprise was the philosophical essay written by Jagmohan,
Lieutenant-Governor of Kashmir in the late 1980s.
It was published by Frontline in 1991. He was clearly deeply troubled by
the state of Hinduism and entitled it 'My Frozen Turbulence'. Here it is
in substance:
MY FROZEN TURBULENCE
There is something basically wrong in present-day India that takes her
astray in almost every sphere of life.
The country requires fundamental reforms in the realm of ideas.
During my somewhat tumultuous and eventful in public service, I was
fortunate to have had a close look at the state of our institutions.
All along I felt that some vital planks were missing in our edifice. It
was bound to totter and it often did.
Without an adequate social and spiritual base, all our institutions, our
laws and Constitution, our judicial and legislative bodies are bound to
be rendered frigid and fragile.
While I remained occupied with affairs of state during all the turbulent
years, there remained tucked,
somewhere in the corner of my mind, a smouldering belief that unless our
social thoughts were reconstructed and religious practices reformed,
unless we understood the relationship between the social and spiritual
order, unless there was a deep-rooted renaissance to provide new
directions to our policy and
lead to a new moral order, a new 'socialism', new environmental ethics
and technology, the country's future would remain dark, and our society
would
become more exploitative and corrupt, and prone to collapse.
An essential pre-requisite and component of the renaissance would be a
re-awakened and rejuvenated Hinduism that has shed its flabbiness,
cleared its clogged arteries and recouped its vigour and buoyancy. This
new Hinduism would create a new Hindu who is just, compassionate,
creative
and contemplative; a Hindu with a clean conscience, one who believes in
the fundamental unity of man and is committed to the purification of his
own soul
and of those around him; a Hindu prepared to provide motivational
underpinning to all State institutions, making them honest, and
service-oriented.
Today, when I reflect on my experiences in Kashmir or at the country's
affairs from a higher vantage point, I feel vindicated by the
correctness of my assessment.
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Eddie
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Eddie
