Why no mahatma after Gandhi

The title of the essay seems rather confusing. Mahatma Gandhi the most popular leader who led the Indian freedom movement to its very goal was unfortunately the very last produce in the same genre by our beloved motherland. But this fact however is also a debatable one for he spent the early years of his life which are considered as the most crucial years in the life of a human being or the developing years, not in India but at abroad thus Gandhi the Leader was never really the creation of India. The infertility of the Indians at creating leaders still continues even after 68 long years of freedom, even when there is no alien power suppressing us nor is education limited to only a selected few.

What is then the problem, where does the infertile duct lies in our country and how can it be replaced by a fertile one? These are some question that we Indians need to answer before we claim to be developed or before we vouch for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council because such developments would require the support of strong and efficient leaders to bear fruits for the country.

Many would say that leaders aren’t created but are born. Babies with the most peculiar and with the rarest possible positive placement of planets in their natal charts grow up to be great leaders and unfortunately not many such babies are born in our country, a country which has however already witnessed the births are deaths of uncountable number of gods and goddesses. The claim rests on very shaky grounds in the modern times for in the today’s world various people have proved the predictions of their natal charts wrong.

In my opinion leaders are partially born and the rest made. It is the education system and the society that we live in which is responsible for creating leaders. The infertile duct of our country is its education system and the ever growing craze for private education is further endangering the rare chances of fixing the illness.

The modern education system in India has room neither for vocational courses nor for utile skills. A student who answers back or questions his teacher is first warned, then suspended and ultimately expelled, no matter how germane and virtuous the student’s argument is.  The content of the argument is ignored and what remains is a lifetime blot on the character of the student. This not only kills fight and the potential of a student but also warns other students, thus, nipping their leadership skills in the bud.

The student unions which are also seen with utmost disgrace by the most of the elders in our society are perhaps the real stage for one who pursues to use it rightly, these are the forums which teaches a budding leader how to develop into a flower.

Adolf Hitler, the man who led Germany in the World War II, the man who resurrected Germany after the First World War, the man who was followed by millions and the man who despite all his wrong doings was a great leader, explains in his autobiography Mein Kampf, how he developed his leadership skill, to quote, “Constant romping around outdoors, taking the long road to school, association with extremely rowdy boys… my gift for speaking was developing more or less through violent disputes with my playmates. I had somehow become a ringleader among my group. I had no trouble learning and completing lessons at school, but otherwise I was fairly hard to handle.”

There exists a very fine line between rightly argumentative and indisciplined; it is the job of the mentors to ensure that a student remains rightly argumentative. For only if one argues and questions the wrongs in this world, only then can he/she dare to fight it and only then can he or she be a great leader. The motive behind quoting a text from Mein Kampf is not to glorify Hitler but to try and learn from the little good he had. The attempt is not to back student unions but to shed light upon the positive roles such institutions can play.

We are living in the twenty first century and there are no vacancies for any Mahatma or any Hitler in our country. What we need is a better Lok Sabha which shall only be formed when our education system stops considering grades as the sole certificate of a person’s capabilities. The infertile duct of our nation longs mending and the responsibility to fix it lies upon us.

-          Umang, student, B.A. Political Science (H)