Imagine yourself having started a restaurant. You are looking to hire a few people to run your restaurant. The reason I have used the phrase, of needing people to run a restaurant is, you should hire the right people, who knows the skill to work in a restaurant. And, it is the culinary skills. You would hire people with the best culinary skills only. You wouldn’t even care if they are illiterates. What do you expect of political leaders? It is the leadership skill and the administrative skill. IIT and IIM graduates pursue skills in engineering and management. They are surely the ones who are of above average intelligence. But, this certainly not guarantees of them have the skills of leadership and administration.
When you go back to the history, Great World leaders, including Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Roosevelts (Theodore & Franklin), Jawaharlal Nehru, Lee Kwan Yew, and Martin Luther King, all of them had a background in Law. Only Lawyers can become efficient law makers. Lawmakers have to be expert at Law. If they also have a degree in fields other than Law that’s more than welcome. But a thorough understanding of the constitution and its working is of supreme importance. The best example of such a person is Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, who is a graduate from IIT and a good leader, who very well understands the Indian constitution and people in India.
Neither IITs nor IIMs has introduced laws as one of the major subjects in their degrees. In fact, great engineers and managers are not interested in politics and what interests IITs is technology and what interests IIMs is corporates. They are also only used to seeing things around them obeying to their orders. For example, IITs admire technology, where things get done at the push of the button. So, when it comes to understanding people, conveying their view points, dealing with ignorance, illiteracy and poverty, even the top engineers from IITs may dramatically fail.
We need leaders who should have ideologies of progress like improving the standard of living, Country’s GDP, eradication of poverty, strengthening human rights, ensuring better quality of life, eradicating social/racial discrimination, bizarre and irrational taboos etc. in the country. For this, one needs to possess certain qualities that need not always be seen in the highly educated people. They are empathy for people, selfless commitment towards their work, wisdom, willingness to get down to the ground to work for the sake of people of the country, allegiance to the idea of India and tolerance. If an IIT graduate or an IIM graduate, is a person, who wants to work for earning money for himself and his family, then what is the use of having such a person in the parliament, irrespective of him being an intellectual, while even people with limited educational background can become a good leader. And, the best example for this is the Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, during 1954 to 1963, Mr. Kamaraj.
IIT and IIM graduate has been doing a wonderful role, by selecting the cream in the society, to pursue studies in their renowned institutions. They train their students to become the top engineers and managers. Pursuing degrees from these institutes certainly make students potential enough to become the better citizens of the country, where they contribute highly to the economic development of the country. However, on the offset, they are actually not working towards doing well for the country. They are working for themselves. Country’s leaders should not work for themselves and they have to be selfless individuals, who can commit themselves to the welfare of the society. Such people may come from a background of IIT or IIM, or from a limited education background also. It can be anybody. And, changes for good can be seen in India, only if we have such wise people in the parliament, irrespective of their educational background.
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