{"id":4087,"date":"2013-04-05T22:41:59","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T17:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/?p=4087"},"modified":"2013-04-05T22:41:59","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T17:11:59","slug":"tehelka-blog-dissecting-the-gandhi-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calamur.org\/gargi\/2013\/04\/05\/tehelka-blog-dissecting-the-gandhi-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Tehelka Blog – Dissecting the Gandhi speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

My blog for Tehelka<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"PTI<\/p>\n

Jane Wyman, the first wife of the late US President Ronald Reagan was once asked how it was being married to him. She answered that he was a great guy, but had only one shortcoming<\/b><\/a>, \u201cAsk him the time and he\u2019ll tell you how the watch was made.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the second half of his CII speech, Rahul Gandhi was asked about the centre-state relationship based on the constitution and how the tussle between rules at the state and Centre hampers economic development. But the Gandhi scion began discussing the 73rd <\/sup>and 74th<\/sup> amendment and the need for decentralisation. For him, it was a structural issue. If he was a professor in a university, and the audience his students, it would have been a way of getting the students to think about the problem differently \u2013 the need to devolve power to the local elected representative and letting them deal with \u201clower level policy\u201d, leavi<\/p>\n

ng members of the state and Central legislature to deal with \u201chigher level policy\u201d. But in a CII meeting, maybe something more specific was needed \u2013 issues relating to GST, FDI in retail, issues of domestic agenda spilling into international relations and impacting business. Instead, business leaders got a lecture on the constitutional issues at the core of the Centre-state tussles. If you tell people who run multi-crore companies, spread over distinct geographies, that the system cannot get work done because the \u201corganisation structure\u201d was flawed and \u201croles and responsibilities\u201d were wrongly designed, they will tell you how to fix it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n
Jim:<\/i><\/b> Yes as I said, I\u2019m glad you asked me that question because it\u2019s a question that a lot of people are asking, and quite so, because a lot of people want to know the answer to it. And let\u2019s be quite clear about this without beating about the bush the plain fact of the matter is that it is a very important question indeed and people have a right to know.<\/i><\/span><\/address>\n
Bob:<\/i><\/b> Minister, we haven\u2019t yet had the answer.<\/i><\/span><\/address>\n
Jim:<\/i><\/b> I\u2019m sorry, what was the question?<\/i><\/span><\/address>\n
Yes Minister \u2013 <\/i>interaction<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a> between the Minister Jim Hacker, and Bob the Journalist<\/i><\/span><\/address>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The question and answer session, in which Mr. Gandhi gave tangential answers to rather straight questions (the second was on water and waste water management and his response was on how complexity makes India competitive) was preceded by a speech.<\/p>\n

It was a speech that was great on homilies and metaphors, great on intentions and adjectives, great on laying out the problems and rather short and vague on specifics. It was a speech that was really all over the place, was difficult to get a strand or focused agenda or a vision. It had some great words such as compassion, harmony and optimism, but overall it did not seem to have a direction. It sounded more like a US campaign stump speech than an address to a room full of high powered business leaders. You could almost close your eyes and hear a Clinton or a Bush or an Obama deliver this line with great gravitas. \u201cWe are now sitting on an unstoppable tide of human aspiration. A tide so great, that it is going to move forward regardless of what we do. But for this massive movement of people and ideas to be truly transformational we need to nurture it. We need to make it harmonious; we need to make it happen smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n

That gravitas was lacking. He came across better in the Q & A session than he did in the speech.<\/p>\n

If you left aside the fact that his party has been in power for the last nine years on a trot, and a good 40+ years immediately after independence, Mr. Gandhi made good points and observations about the system and its flaws. His points on the optimism of Indians, the need for infrastructure, the need to not leave people behind, the need for harmony \u2013 most will be hard-pressed to argue against these. But the speech was incomplete. The problems he discussed, the concerns he raised are all very real. But there were no solutions, nor was there direction. For example, his arguments in building structures between academia and industry, converting the closed university silos to open networked systems \u2013 were great, but it was incomplete. What was needed was a single line that told us the thought process in getting it off the ground. A single line that said this is what needs to be done, and this is how the Government is going to act as a catalyst or an enabler. The solutions cannot be ours alone. How does he, or his party, plan to change the situation? There had to be a vision, a leadership, which was evidently lacking.<\/p>\n

Rahul\u2019s mangled metaphors:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    \n
  • \n

    India actually is energy, it is a force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    We are now sitting on an unstoppable tide of human aspiration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    Democracy and technology have triggered a non-reversible chain reaction in India.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    We have to provide the roads on which our dreams are paved.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    They (women) are not only building boats, they\u2019re the waves<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My blog for Tehelka Jane Wyman, the first wife of the late US President Ronald Reagan was once asked how it was being married to him. 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