Anil, your article forced me to think about all the leaders you named. Surprisingly I find we have many leaders but lack visionary and good person in our leadership team.

- Kaushal Das - Jan. 18, 2006

Vidyasagar ji, there was no ulterior motive behind not including those names you have mentioned. This list was not supposed to be exhaustive and were meant only as examples to evoke some thoughts. Feel free to add your own 'favorites' in this list. Why stop at Mahajan and Jaitley, how about Sharad Pawar, Sheila Dixit, Shatrughan Sinha, Hema Malini, Jaya Prada, etc etc? PatnaDaily will need several gigabytes of server space if we include the names of all the 'leaders' in India.

And no, I am not an upper caste BJP crony as you are probably trying to figure out. My comment was not about upper caste-lower caste or UPA vs. NDA. It was only about the qualities of a true 'leader'. Please don't try to give it a different color.

Hope this satisfies your curiosity. - Anil Kumar - Jan. 18, 2006

Thank you Anil. I trust you. - Vidyasagar - Jan. 18, 2006

Mr Kaushal Das has created a very good list. It tells us how rare indeed are leaders who are visionary as well as honest. Also, if any of the three critical ingredients namely leadership, vision and honesty are missing from a politician then he/she becomes just another politician who either supports or maintains the status quo in the rotting system. - Som Vishwakarma, USA - Jan. 19, 2006

The article was lucid enough for us to understand the difference between a leader and a politician. The message was to find the real leader within ourselves. We don't need to know either the caste or the political connection of the author to understand his message. That is the least we can do to show respect to senior persons.

But there are people who would not talk to someone unless they know his "full" name. In case the "full" name does not satisfy their curiosity, then they will ask his father's name or such details. If a person of same caste/religion appreciates an article, then that becomes groupism. If a guy is Mr X Y then he must be an ABC party supporter. I apologize to Mr Anil on behalf of such people. - Kumod Jha - Jan. 19, 2006

Thank you Kumod ji but no apology needed. You are absolutely right though. We Indians have become so attuned to linking certain castes to certain groups that we have forgotten the art of thinking outside the box. Even a valid debate like this and others here at PatnaDaily is quickly judged through the eyes of backward-forward, upper class-lower class, Congress-NDA, and Hindu-Muslim angles. This is really very unfortunate. Those who are reading these messages are obviously educated people, are technologically up-to-date, and have shown fluency in their writings (frankly, I am very impressed with the quality of writing on this board whether I agree with someone's view or not) but when it comes to thinking outside one's caste, class, party, religion or belief, many have utterly failed.

Back to the original question - so who are our true leaders? - Anil Kumar - Jan. 19, 2006

They are cheaters, traitors, thugs, criminals and opportunists. I do not find any of our Politicians to be actual leaders. They cheer us on to communal violence, caste wars, and regional wars with Biharis beaten in Assam and Maharashtra, and Biharis banned from entering Goa. Some lead a mob of millions to demolish the Babri Masjid in the name of Astha, and still some of us called them great leaders. Hitler was a leader, too, and he destroyed Germany. According to the models we currently have, a leader has to be selfish: we all realized how power-hungry Chandra Babu Naidu became after N T Ramarao's death; we saw Mayawati work to divide uppper and lower; and recently, Uma Bharti marching for Ram Roti and so power-hungry that her failure to be elected CM made her cry. - S. M. Khurshid Anwar, New York, USA - Jan. 20, 2006

Good question indeed. Let's bring a twist to this issue and debate and definition of leaders and leadership. A leader is a leader and it does not matter how you see it, it's all, after all, perspective at the end of the day. Well, let's analyze the list again. I see all these as leaders. Why? Have I gone insane or berserk? Maybe, maybe not. A leader is an individual that can move people and align them in his way of thinking and looking at things and motivate them to do things his way, show them direction. As indicated by Kaushal Das, leadership has nothing to do with vision and being a nice person. So, they are all leaders! Now the question really is what type of leaders are they? As mentioned by somebody, Hitler was also a leader and I agree completely. Stalin was a leader, Eisenhower was leader, Mahatma Gandhi was a leader, Nelson Mandela was a leader and so are Laloo, Mayawati, Jayalalitha etc.. We have to distinguish between different types of leaders:

1. Good for mankind
2. Not good for mankind

and categorize these under above two categories.

I know your implicit indication was number 1 when you asked the question and I am not sure if we can categorize any of our politicians in that category today across India.

Our politicians are leaders of second category (most of the cases). Question is how do we make it better? We need more participation from educated people in politics. We need to educate our youth to distinguish between these two types of leaders. Not all youth fall in this category though. There are people who are educated but fall into this trap because of frustration, unemployment, poverty etc.

There are enough leaders within ourselves and all we need to do is create an environment so that they can come forward and can be distinguished by the mass appropriately.

Also, I would like to point out few things that I have noticed from some of our friends in their comments

1. Please don't ever get personal as this is a global platform and there are lots of people reading your comments.

2. Don't jump onto conclusion about intentions of the author based on something written - "please don't try to read between the lines".

3. Don't be a pessimist.

4. Let everybody write however they feel comfortable and don't force people to write your way - comments from few people about original article etc..

There are people who can not come up with original article because this may not be their "area of expertise". These people can only comment - on something already written. There are different type of people and different individuality - don't restrict or force people to do one way or other. This will discourage people to write and contribute in whatever fashion they are contributing today. Every criticism/comment has some value, readers should filter it as they deem fit.

I did not want look like a preacher but am voicing my concern as a reader and occasional writer and hope people will take this in good spirit. I love to read articles and comments from various different people. Keep writing!! - Roshan Kumar - - Jan. 20, 2006

Discussion on this topic is now closed.