The Indian Express: Saturday, December 10, 2005
Everybody around the world, except perhaps the Indian political class, accepts that politics is now a younger person’s profession. We have today a world where Bill Clinton retires at 54 as a two-term president, Koizumi and Schroeder keep falling in love, Blair is producing babies, Musharraf plays a hard game of squash and Bush boasts a Bjorn Borgesque pulse rate of 48. The Chinese have brought about a generational shift, all of Europe, including, surprise of surprises, France, is going through the same change. Politics in India has never been the profession of the young. In a society where experience is confused for ability and age for wisdom it’s been common for parties to make their brightest minds wait till they are well into their sixties before they are trusted with real responsibility. But this has to change now. Today’s politics and governance are more demanding. They demand better, more modern, skills; a spontaneous connection with technology and understanding of the markets and, most important of all, a stake in the future. Around the world now, public figures are younger, fitter, more active. In contrast, ours routinely look outdated. If there is one thing the older generation of our politicians knows well it is how to squash the challenge of the young. The late Madhavrao Scindia once complained to me, rather philosophically, of how people in his party kept on telling him he needed some more experience. “I tell them,” he said, “I am well above 50, and a grandfather. So how much more experience do I need?”
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