In the last 12 months, three of the world's foremost democracies "" first India, then the US and now Britain "" have had national elections. India and Britain have, maybe for similar reasons of weariness with the long rule of one party, opted for change. In the US, Bill Clinton has been re-elected, but only because the American people haven't yet had time to be fed up with the Democrats. After all, before they lost in 1992, the Republicans had ruled from 1969 onwards, with a four-year break during 1976-80 caused more by the revulsion against Richard Nixon than anger against the party itself.
In each case the older party, representing an older coalition of interests, has been defeated. In each case, what has replaced it is not just a different, but a newer coalition. Newer, in the sense of representing interest groups which have sprung up during the 20th century, some after the Second World War, some before but indubitably the products of the 20th century.
They represent a way of looking of things which is substantially different from the older one represented by the Republicans in the US, whose intellectual moorings are far older, the Tories in Britain, who too go back a lot in time and the Congress in India, which also is based, essentially, on the Gladstonian liberalism of the last 19th century, never mind, for the moment, the later distortions introduced by the Nehrus, pere et fils.
As these three important countries enter the 21st century, it is these newer coalitions which will be in power, firmly in the US and the UK, less so here. It is too early to say whether they will set the agenda for the entire first quarter of the next century. But given that they would have been in power for four years before it begins, it is very probable that, in one way or another, they will in fact do so. Simply being in power will ensure that, either in a negative or a positive way. The age of the political leadership in the three countries will be critical in this context.
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair (who is apparently the youngest British prime minister in about 200 years) belong to the generation which gathered its thoughts together during 1967-77, the period when the State first began to get a bad name. This is a major plus point for both the US and the UK. In contrast, India is still having to make do with prime ministers (and potential prime ministers) from what will soon appear to be the Neolithic age.
After all, it is hardly comforting that in the 1990s, India hasn't had "" and will not have "" a single prime minister below the age of 60. V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Deve Gowda and now Inder Gujral. It looks like the veterans' parade on January 26. Barring Deve Gowda who, because he wasn't quite au fait with the older ideas and was therefore more open to newer ones, the rest have stoutly resisted change.
This means that while in the US and the UK, the agenda for the best part of the first quarter of the 21st century will be set by younger men, in India it will be set by men who have one foot dangling in the grave. This cannot but be a cause for the deepest concern because when India talks, it will be incomprehensible to the Anglo-Saxon world. The signs of this are already posted on the walls.
And much as we'd like to pretend otherwise, intellectually and in the categories in which we think, we belong to that world. Our political, legal and economic systems are based on the precepts laid down by their traditions and their ideals. Indeed, this includes Marxism as well. So even to suggest that if the Anglo-Saxon world doesn't understand India it doesn't matter, is silly.
The problem which this phenomenon underscores is not confined to leadership alone. It gets down even deeper, into the whole issue of how representative the Congress, the BJP, the Janata Dal etc are. Demographically, India is a very young country, 40 per cent of its population is below 15 and 65 per cent is below 30. How can these old men claim to represent these young people?
Let me give just one example which, even if it sounds far-fetched to some and freakish to others, does serve to illustrate the divide. Thanks to Internet, the notion that education must be delivered in a classroom is coming under threat. Far better, some have argued, to put the lessons on the Net and which can be accessed by students, either at home if they have a computer or in a suitably modified local area network. The beauty of this is that there would no longer be any need for conventional teachers.
Most people below 50 have immediately grasped the idea. People over 50 have sounded a bit hesitant. Even older persons, with just one or two exceptions, have looked completely bewildered. Its not that they don't know what computers are or what the Net is. Its just that in their experience, there is nothing which even remotely resembles the idea of doing away with conventional teaching. There is black hole of incomprehension.
It is this black hole which stretches between the Indian people and their aging leaders. To my mind, this is the main lesson of the three elections which I mentioned at the very outset. While the UK and the US have found a younger leadership, India is nowhere close to it.
What a terrible pity.
