MANGO PEOPLE IN A BANANA REPUBLIC

“An aam admi from a different era” is a touching reminiscence of C.Rajagopalachari (Rajaji or CR as he was popularily known), the first Indian Governor General of independent India from 1948 to 1950 by Radha Padmanabhan in the New Indian Express.Her memory lane takes us to the early 1960s,when she recalls her first meeting with the great man: “He was sitting there all alone in a third class waiting room of the Calicut railway station……….waiting for a connecting train” , despite the highest class entitled to him.Rajaji could command the best government accommodation,but he preferred to live in a small house in Madras (now Chennai). Gandhiji once said that Rajaji was “ the keeper of my conscience”. A Bharat Ratna awardee, Rajaji led a very simple life.As a leader he was a role model for others.His family never capitalized his high position.Those were days when political leaders upheld high moral standards like the former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri,who resigned from the post of Railway Minister owning  moral responsibilty for the Ariyaloor(in Tamil Nadu) train accident. Such instances are unthinkable today. Scams, scandals and corruption charges involving astronomical amounts of public money are brushed aside by the ruling class. If Shastri’s resignation is the moral standard to be expected from leaders, then there would not have been any Minister for the Railways in recent decades. For that matter, resignations from Ministers would have been a regular feature. Many of our leaders are indeed “dealers”.

Political leadership today is hereditary as political dynasties from the national to the state levels have become the order of the day. There are even district level dynasties. Dynasties have become common in professions and in film industry. Powerful individuals and their families control enormous wealth of the nation. Nobel Laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz warned the wealthy in the United States: “The top 1 percent have the best houses ,the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought : an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late”. This warning is extremely relevant for the Indian rich too. But they are confident that the mango people in our banana republic would remain powerless for ever.