No goodbyes in India

Greg Chappell, former Australian cricketer and once coach of the Indian cricket team, has made several disparaging remarks about Indians and the Indian way of cricket and life. Some of these remarks are unfair and clearly over the top. Yet there is one point Chappell has made that is not easy to dismiss. Indians, he argues, are not leaders and do not take the responsibility that comes with leadership.

Whatever Chappell’s reasons, there is a kernel of truth to his assessment. As a culture and a society, contemporary India does not value risk-taking and lateral thinking — at least the elite does not. Without that risk-taking instinct leaders would not be leaders. Another attribute of leadership is to know when to step down and focus on what management gurus called succession planning. Here, too, Indians are often found wanting and fall prey to the King Lear syndrome.
Rahul Dravid’s dignified retirement this past week was the exception that proved the rule. Even somebody like Kapil Dev, for all his brave words now, hung around much longer than he should have, chasing one record after another and swallowing his pride to stay in the Indian XI and the limelight
This piece, however, is not about cricket. It is about leadership and a specific aspect of leadership — realising when to ride gently into the sunset. If one considers some of India’s biggest institutions, public or private, political or economic, there is disconcerting evidence that Indians simply don’t know when to retire.
Consider our two national parties. The BJP still hasn’t completed a transition it should have achieved in 2004. Imagine if Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani had addressed a media conference at the end of May or June that year, after the defeat in the general election, and announced they were returning to private life and that in their late 70s they were done. Imagine if Advani, like Dravid, had drafted a farewell statement that read: “My approach to politics has been reasonably simple: it was about giving everything to party and country, it was about acting with dignity, and it was about upholding the spirit of public life. I hope I have done some of that. I have failed at times, but I have never stopped trying. It is why I leave with sadness but also with pride.”
If he had done this, Advani would have made the transition from a politician to a legend. Today, he is just another MP.
Why single out the BJP? The Congress came to power in 2004 and immediately misread the urgings of a new India, putting together a Dad’s Army of a Cabinet. How else does one explain K. Natwar Singh as foreign minister and Shivraj Patil as home minister? Even today, a tired, jaded Cabinet simply clings on, limpet-like, because the party is clear Rahul Gandhi is not ready for the top job but will not take the risk of installing somebody between the Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi generations, somebody in the 55 to 65 years slot. As for the old guard, each day it sticks on its legacy is damaged that much more.
Look beyond politics. In so many family-owned businesses the old patriarch makes a show of retirement, of becoming non-executive chairman and handing the managing director’s role and day-to-day authority to the son or daughter. In practice, he finds it difficult to let go. The autonomy the next generation has been promised often comes only with the death of the previous one.
Move to non-corporate economic institutions. At 90, Verghese Kurien is an Indian legend, founder chairman of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation and of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), father of India’s “white revolution”. Yet, when his successor at the NDDB, Amrita Patel, sought to take independent decisions, set up subsidiary companies, promote brands and enter into marketing JVs, Kurien objected. He couldn’t see merit in allowing the new incumbent the autonomy of simply doing things her way. This led Jairam Ramesh, then a media columnist, to write of how a “mentor had turned tormentor”.
With such disturbing and saddening precedents before us, how does one look upon Mulayam Singh Yadav’s insistence that his son, Akhilesh Yadav, take over as Uttar Pradesh chief minister? Mulayam is no intellectual or business school graduate. Nevertheless he has invoked an earth practicality and pragmatism that makes him almost unique among Indian politicians. He has recognised that the massive mandate the Samajwadi Party won on March 6 was a vote for change and for a new type of politics. In many ways, it was a vote for Akhilesh Yadav, who campaigned hard throughout the state.
Mulayam’s second motivation may be a trifle more self-interested but even here he demonstrates a large-heartedness. The SP founder-leader has recently undergone his second prostrate surgery. At 72, he understands he is not getting younger and could be troubled by health issues. As such, rather than seek a final but potentially short stint in office, he feels the need for an orderly succession. He sees this as his responsibility as a leader.
Pushing Akhilesh, 38, to the top job in Lucknow right now, when the mandate is fresh and public goodwill is strong for the younger man, is perfect timing. Two or three years later, things could be better or they could be worse. Dissidence and disgruntlement within the Yadav family could be more difficult to tackle.
Consider the Congress experience. The mandate of 2009 could have been used to nominate Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister. Instead, the party was too clever by half and decided to hold back Rahul for closer to the 2014 election. Events overtook it. Mulayam does not want to leave room for the same mistake in the case of Akhilesh. As such, in not grabbing the government leadership for himself, Mulayam has in fact established why he is a great leader.
Someone should tell Greg Chappell Mulayam’s story.

The writer can be contacted at malikashok@gmail.com