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| Leadership Crisis of South Asia | | |
Ilhan Niaz
And the most disgraceful thing for sovereigns is to disdain learning and be ashamed of exploring the sciences. He who does not learn is not wise.
— Khosraw I, Anushirvan, Sassanid Persian Emperor
And he who is not wise, one might add, cannot govern and will bring ruin upon himself and hispeople. George W. Bush presidency (2001-2009) in the United States is a critical and stunning validation of this point. When the presidency began the United States was feared by all and respected enough to give the unipolar order and economic globalisation a degree of legitimacy.
Today, the US is unravelling on the economic front, distrusted even by its closest allies, and bogged down in military campaigns that have already cost more than any possible benefits that might accrue to the West in the future.
Rarely if ever has an imperial power possessed advantages as great as the United States — 700 plus military bases world wide, unmatched military technological prowess, a homeland geographically secure from conventional attack, the world’s largest economy, participation in alliances with practically all the other major industrialised nations, and the absence of rivals capable of establishing a balance of power.
The US-led bloc accounts, even today, for some two-thirds of global economic output. If willfully ignorant leadership can inflict calamities upon a country with as wide a margin of error as the United States, then for countries like Pakistan, which do not possess remotely comparable strategic luxuries, the consequences are likely to be even more dire.
At an abstract level, perhaps the greatest single failure of leadership is the inability to comprehend the state as an integrated whole. This leads to contradictory orders and the different state institutions operating at cross-purposes.
It breeds indiscipline and makes the working of the government appear arbitrary and poorly thought out, thereby diminishing respect for it. Equally pernicious is the tendency to peddle personal favours and interests through the state apparatus rather than formulating and executing sound policies. Policy making requires a great deal of information. Generating information for the purpose is the task of the servants of the state and the academia. In bureaucratic states such as Sassanid Persia or British India, the servants of the state were the academic class and vice versa. The rulers, however, must be intellectually capable of digesting the information generated and converting it, with the assistance of others, into understanding.
Only when this is done can a programme of action to alter social reality be successfully executed. Without a generous amount of intellectual rigour leadership, however inspired or charismatic, will ultimately flounder.
Intellect is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective leadership. Character counts for a great deal though not in a manner that is commonly understood. A person who is at a personal level “good” according to the standards of the society in which he or she lives does not automatically possess the character required to exercise power.
By extension, those who are out of sync with the conventional personal morality of the societies in which they live may well be extremely well adapted to the exercise of power.
Character in relation to leadership is not about personal goodness. A personally good man like George Bush or Louis XVI may well prove disastrous as a leader. A ruler who is, at the personal level, immoral, like Akbar or Louis XIV, may on the other hand possess the qualities of character necessary, or virtues, to be a worthy leader.
These public virtues are qualities associated with greatness not goodness. They include a strong work ethic, enlightened self-interest, the ability to be relatively honest with oneself, and the willingness to learn from the experience and wisdom of others.
The combination of cerebral superiority and moral resilience are vital if the leader is to inspire admiration and genuine regard in his associates and subordinates. If the leader is instead only obeyed due to fear and greed or easily duped then his rule will not prove particularly wholesome for either himself or his country. If anything, fearful and avaricious servants will earn their master a terrible reputation and contribute to his downfall. Heedlessness and vindictiveness guarantee that the ruler is told only what he wants to hear.
Once disconnected from reality, however, the ruler’s ability to make sound decisions is fatally compromised. Leaders who lack true ability tend to hide behind their acquired status and content themselves with the trappings of power leaving the real task of policy making to their malevolent companions or presiding over a vacuum.
Finally, an intimate and effective understanding of the mechanism of implementation is required to translate intentions into effects and complement the ability to derive meaningful conclusions from theoretical and empirical insights. Great rulers are thorough enough to guide their policies to fruition.
Their thoroughness flows from, and is reinforced by, knowledge and experience of the political and administrative machine at their disposal. The requisite knowledge can be acquired through intellectual effort and self-education. The necessary experience and maturity can be gained through exposure and proximity to decision making.
The South Asian tragedy is that there is absolutely no politician, military officer or civilian bureaucrat, in any position of authority who even comes close to what the region desperately needs in terms of leadership. South Asian politics, whether democratic or not, is a meaningless exercise in the election or rotation into and out of power of almost equally unsuitable alternatives.
Asking people to choose from amongst the likes of Narendra Modi, Bal Thackeray, Jayalalitha, Mayawati, Sheikh Hasina Wajid, Khaleda Zia, or the assorted Nehru-Gandhis, Sharifs, Chaudhries, etc., is an exercise in futility. It is like asking people to choose between Muhammad Shah “Rangeela” and Shah Alam and expecting that the choice will make any difference to the outcome. In the 1930s and 1940s the choice was between leaders like M. A. Jinnah, M. K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhai Patel, Maulana Azad, B. R. Ambedkar, H. S. Suhrawardy, and Liaquat Ali Khan. But then, these leaders were the products of the British Indian imperial civilisation and although outstanding as individuals, failed to ensure sufficient continuity in the quality of leadership.
Under the circumstances the outlook for South Asia is bleak. No process seems to have produced effective leaders. The more Westernised elements amongst the leadership, such as Manmohan Singh, are in thrall to irrational tutelage emanating from the United States with its embarrassingly hollow mantras of globalisation and democracy.
The more indigenised elements dream of establishing a Hindu Rashtra or declaring themselves Amir-ul-Momineen given half a chance. Other actors are wholly absorbed by the pursuit of selfish interests associated with caste, kinship or ethnic loyalties or have become salesmen for delusional extravagances for youth parliaments and leadership skills workshops.
No matter who wins the people lose. South Asia has already arrived at the doors of what the Persians called parakandeh shahi or what the Arabs called muluk al-tawa’if. Both terms refer to essentially the same condition. That is, once the succession of competent rulers end, the empire or state is carved up into spheres of influence by local potentates who, though still nominally subservient to padishah or caliph, rule without any check from above or below. It is the intermediate stage between effective order and criminal anarchy. That most of South Asia’s history is about quasi-anarchic conditions should serve to warn us of the fate that awaits us unless our luck improves dramatically as regards the quality of leadership.
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