Let leadership grow from the ruins

Let leadership grow from the ruins
The state of emergency, crackdown on corruption suspects and ban on politics isolated the chiefs of the two large parties from most of their long-term colleagues. The difficult time has at least done one good thing – it has exposed the leaders to their followers spread up to the villages. True leadership emerges from crisis; not from guided reform formula mapped out in drawing rooms or somewhere else. A ‘test-tube’ political party is also unlikely to be the answer. Let the top leadership prove its ability in the present times of crisis, or let the new leadership emerge from the ruins, writes Titu Datta Gupta

THE ban on politics has apparently opened a floodgate of reform recipes with aging politicians vowing to do right now what they could not do in decades. Colleagues and silent party loyalists across the country are amazed, sometimes amused to see how some of their long-known leaders are turning into total reformists overnight........................