By Shekhar Tiwari
India is in the thick of electing a new president and the time could not be more opportune to reflect on the qualities we must look for in the new leader even though the office is more symbolic than executive. It is disheartening to notice that the entire debate on the presidential election ends up focusing on the superfluous, the partisan and the non-essential.
For instance, one frequently hears that certain sections of India's political establishment have been insisting that the new president ought to have political grounding. Then there are those who would naturally look for a leader who is more amenable to their ideological biases and predispositions. Yet another section would probably look for someone who fits their caste or class preferences. It is striking that hardly does one hear any politician of consequence speaking out in favour of a visionary figure who is above political, caste and other narrow equations.
Instead of looking for someone whose vision is more attuned to an India of the next 50 years, a lot of people in India are looking for someone who is a political conformist with no new ideas and someone who is not guided by the past but beckoned by the future.
It should be said to the credit of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam that he has been successful in breathing in a new life and a new vision into an office that is largely ceremonial. One does not recall an instance in recent times when ordinary people have actually gone out of their way to campaign for continuing the incumbent in Rashtrapati Bhavan. It is a tribute to Kalam's unusual style of functioning where he saw his role as the chief motivator in a country where more than 50 percent of its population is 25 years of age or less.
Kalam brought the right mix of modernity, scientific temper and idealism free from any political prejudices. That is the reason why he has become so popular. Now that the office of the president has been elevated to a different level, it is important that India looks for someone who not only maintains those standards but even goes beyond them.
The first and foremost attribute that we need to look for in a new president is unimpeachable personal integrity and the passion to do what is right constitutionally without any fear or favor. After all, contrary to popular notions the president is not a partisan figure installed to further the interests of a single party or ideology but the entire country.
Another important attribute that we must look for is that the person should have a compelling vision of India that is in line with the 21st century and devoid of archaic or outdated ideas. The way I see it the job of the president is to inspire the rest of the country to aspire to higher values and greater excellence in all our national endeavors. We need a president who inspires the people of India, particularly its young, to go beyond the call of their duty and job to help the country achieve its promise of greatness.
We also need in our new president a sense of conviction that India's role in world affairs has changed decisively in the last decade or so. From being a marginal voice on the international stage, it is now the world's most cherished growing democracy. That puts on the office of the president that much more weight to carry. In the president's role as the ambassador of everything that is great about India, the incumbent ought to represent a combination of the country's glorious past but, more important, its great future.
Although constitutionally the president is supposed to articulate the policies and philosophies of the prime minister and his cabinet, there is enough flexibility in that role to leave a mark of independence. We need a president who would not fight shy of asserting independence without in any way challenging the supremacy of the constitution.
We also need a president who does not merely get lost in the ceremonies of the office but uses the powerful platform to introduce generational change in our mindsets about the way we do many things in India. The office has some inherent strengths, both constitutional and symbolic, to enable its occupant to subtly guide India on a course that the politically hamstrung executive branch sometimes may hesitate to.
It is very important that we do not reduce the office of the president to an ugly battleground of partisan politics as it frequently becomes. All political parties must realize that the office is greater than the sum of their political ambitions. The office has certain gravitas that must rise above all politics and all machinations.
(Shekhar Tiwari is an Indian American community leader who lives in Washington, DC. He can be contacted at [email protected])