On “thinking outside the box” and “great learning experiences”
No, I am not talking about my upcoming visit to Indore…but something more exalted.
I am talking about the dozen odd MPs who “attended classes at the prestigious Yale University” and remarked that it was a “great learning experience”…that would help them think “out of the box.”
All very fine and good except – as Ashvini points out – there may be more to this than meets the eye…From “Is Yale turning India into a Dynastic Democracy?” (Hat Tip: Sanjay Anandaram):
As I scrolled down the report, the choice of MPs selected for the programme intrigued me, and then began plainly irritating me.
Leader of the pack: Abhishek Manu Singhvi, son of L.M. Singhvi.
The other members of the squad:
# H.D. Kumaraswamy: son of former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda.
# Naresh Goyal: son of former prime minister I.K. Gujral.
# Jayant Chaudhary: son of Rashtriya Lok Dal leader, Ajit Singh.
# Shruti Choudhary: daughter of Haryana tourism minister Kiran Choudhary, and grand-daughter of Bansi Lal.
# Priya Dutt, daughter of late Sunil Dutt.
# Mohammad Hamdullah Sayeed, son of the former Union minister P.M. Sayeed.
# Anurag Singh, son of the Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.
# Mausam Noor: granddaughter of Congress leader A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhary.In other words, eight of the ten members of the team (there is also Prakash Javadekar, who is just the son of his parents) are from political families. Sons, daughters, relatives of political leaders.
First, their family standing and surname helped most of them get tickets to contest the elections and enter Parliament. Now, they are getting preferential treatment for leadership courses!
…In a house of 543 MPs, were there no other “young MPs†who were found worthy of being chosen for this high honour?
But there are other questions bugging me:
- How is it that these “children†did not pick up leadership skills from their father, mother, uncles?
- Should a former chief minister like Kumaraswamy have been included in the list with first time MPs?
- Can an American university, howsoever great, really teach leadership for an Indian context?
- Are these first-time MPs in danger of being brainwashed and indoctrinated in the American way of thinking and learning?
- Should we not send delegations like these to places in India that are poor, disease-stricken so that they know the reality?
- Should not these MPs spend time with farmers, weavers, fishermen etc who face extreme hardships to make a simple livelihood and have little of no support from Goverment?
Ashvini concludes:
Going to Yale is good idea, but visiting different towns and villages at home in Bharat that is India will teach them more lasting lessons about leadership and challanges that an Yale can never teach.
Now that would be “thinking outside the box” and a “great learning experience”!
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There is a broader issue here. It is about non-appreciation of merit in every sphere in India. From politicians to civil servants to common man, no one realises that for a particular task, the first and foremost criteria to select candidates should be merit.
Common man in India needs to be educated to look for merit rather than lineage when people are delegated for tasks. I am saying common man as it is the common man only who can bring about these changes. Political and administrative layes in the country are just extensions of common man. Unless the common Indian changes it’s mindset there will not be any solution to this problem.
Is it a surprise notheless inspires anger and frustration. Is any area untouched by nepotism and corruption…from clerical positions to armed forces ….The list is endless. The other side of course is how much Yale is aware of the situation in ground zero i.e. India..urban and rural. Or will we lap up everything that is American and foreign. A week in a village or a small town with power failures etc would have served the purpose better. But then what was the purpose really is the question.
well, I guess the universities need alumni who can be talked about, and who better than a progeny of a politician or bureaucrat with a political empire waiting to be concurred rather handed over by their dad’s!!