Publication

The Founder Member Dr.Kirit Shelat wrote book “Leadership by Choice and not by Chance” which was published by Shree Bhagvati Trust Ahmedabad.

The Institute has documented legal framework in simple knowledge on various important subjects. Shri Parichaya Desai a young advocate who is honorary faculty, undertook this on :

• Laws related to women
• Laws related to Cooperatives
• Election to legislative assembly – a guideline to Candidates

Leadership By Choice Not By Chance By Dr. K.N. Shelat

Opportunities for students in leadership with tips for existing elected public leaders and entrepreneurs. Everything you want to know about multifacets of leadership.

FOREWORD

India has a long history of self-governance and responsible leadership. It has emerged as the largest democracy in the world, rooted in tradition and culture. As the nation grows at a rapid pace, there are issues of poor health delivery system, inadequate education profile, social conflicts, disparity in growth of areas and people, lack of urban and rural infrastructure, and continued poverty in the rural areas. These gaps are against a backdrop of revolution in telecommunications and information technology, creating a long-term impact on social structure and public administration. There is now an environment of opportunities, challenges and pressures for all the participants in the process of development. At a time when technology advancement and globalisation are the keys to way forward and India is becoming a power to be reckoned with, Indian leadership will have to address several core issues. The leadership at all levels, therefore, assumes a great importance, starting from village level to national level – a leadership that can compete the global challenges and address local level issues, is the need of the time.

Dr. Kirit Shelat’s book on leadership portrays what are the challenges before the nation and what is the role of the leaders, how to become a leader, what are the different facets and styles of leaders, how a leader should function, how people must keep an eye on their leader, what is the role of followers and what is the role of the managers. He has emphasised the need for capacity building of existing leaders particularly at grass-root level for sustainable development. But more importantly he has focused on the future generation.

He has very rightly said:

• There are innumerable career opportunities in leadership through which they can excel in life.
• That each one is capable of becoming a leader
• That everyone has some qualities of a leader
• That the missing qualities can be acquired-learned
• That one can become a leader by choice and not by chance – but it requires a determined mind.
• That the world-over the most successful leaders are from the common masses.

He has stated that nations, organizations have grown whenever they have good leaders, they have excelled whenever they have outstanding leaders and the vice-versa is equally true – bad leaders have created chaos, countries have lost their freedom, many people have become poor or a large segment of population has lost its life with continuing conflicts within society.

In the last chapter he has dealt with educational leadership and pointed out the significant role it is required to play to prepare future generations to assume their responsibilities. It is very true that we have a world-class education system but enough is not done for preparing, good and outstanding public leaders. With a view to meet this challenge Puri Foundation for Education, India has made a small beginning by setting up of an International School for Public Leadership in Gujarat, India – with the focus on existing leaders, future generation and university teachers. Dr. Shelat is the ‘Founder Member’ of this School.

Dr. Shelat has taken illustrations from Indian scriptures, the depth of wisdom of which is equally relevant today. He has referred to Chanakya Kautilya, Manusmruti, Yoga Vasistha, Vidur Neeti, Bhagvat Geeta, Gautam Budda, Panchatantra, Akbar-Birbal.

In fact in the new millennium with rapid growth, India has asserted its global position. It has the largest young generation in the world. The new knowledge economy has opened a multitude of opportunities. But there are problems due to complexities of growth like imbalance in socio - economic development resulting into social conflict and expansion of Naxalism to the one third of the country (This is a direct threat to the democratic system of government), suicides by farmers due to poverty and debt, imbalance in provision of amenities within the urban areas, and despite the increase in employment opportunities the number of unemployed youth is growing. It is therefore important to strengthen existing leaders at all levels: the elected leaders, the new entrepreneurs, civil services, judges, NGOs and the like and prepare the future generation to become strong leaders.

This is equally true for many parts of the world where the public governance system has failed due to lack of leadership or bad leaders and there is a chaotic situation leading to corruption and mismanagement of scarce resources, increasing inequalities, despots ruling mercilessly and deaths of millions of innocent people. Even countries, which are known as developed, are now facing problems like the slowing down of economy and social unrest in youth. Dr. Shelat’s present book addresses all these issues for which he is eminently qualified being Ph.D in Public Administration and having worked for forty years in Public Administration in Indian Administrative Service at various levels and with deep involvement in rural development in his second inning, post retirement. He has personal experience and understanding of public leadership and knows what are the challenges in that.

I am sure this book will be of interest to all who have interest in building a strong nation, sustaining a viable village economy and maintenance of democratic system eternally. It will be of immense use to the students to understand where opportunities lie and how to grab them. I feel that this book is an inevitable source of reference to all existing as well as aspiring leaders as it tells them how to reach new heights of excellence, which will be perennially remembered by the generations to come.
Prof. Nathu Puri

PREFACE

While writing my book “What Ails Our Agriculture” I had an occasion to study in depth, the problem of farmers’ suicides and spread of Naxalism to one-third area of our country. I realized that the one reason for phenomenon of farmers’ suicide was failure of extension and development administration to reach out to them. On the other hand, it was total failure of public governance system, which was the root cause of spread of Naxalism. In both the situations, it was the failure of leadership at local level the elected and non-elected. There was no dearth of resources or system like distribution of essential commodities at subsided rates, the law enforcement agencies, the special welfare scheme for families below poverty line, the participative public governance system like three tire Panchayati Raj local self government system. There are comprehensive packages for rural and remote areas for development and the spectrum of initiatives for poor families that came out in last five decades of development of our country.

But all these failed to deliver at village level in areas where we have the above-mentioned problem. While with the growth in economy, initially slow – later on rapid – others went ahead – these people were left behind and are running in the opposite direction. Above the village level, we have the taluka level hierarchy of public governance system which includes the taluka pramukh of taluka panchayat, the tahasildar, taluka development officer, the police inspector, the Judicial Magistrate and above that at district level the pramukh of district panchayat, the Collector and district magistrate, the District Development Officer, the district Superintendent of Police and so on and so forth. All these people do not bother about failure of their own system. They are satisfied with what is happening in the better part – areas of their territory and reporting that to state level and above.

The end result is farmers get frustrated – loose faith in themselves with suicide as one outcome or leaving agriculture and migrate outside. Butgrave is the issue of spread of terrorism in rural areas of our country due to expansion of naxalite movement, which attracts youth and inspires them to use muscle power and remove who ever comes against them with brutality and establish their rule. The recent reports on Naxalism in affected areas reveal that there is nothing like public Governance in these areas where they (the naxalite) rule. The other facet of the same situation, I came to know, from some officers of Chattisgadh, which is a neighbouring state where the spread of Naxalism is very high.

It revealed that the young generation has lost faith in Public Governance system and are lured away, thinking that they get power by joining this movement and they force others to join them. In fact they do not know that they can become a Sarpanch, a taluka Pramukh, MLA or Chairman of Cooperatives or/ of a Self Help Group and participate in public governance and share power. They do not know that they can successfully set up a micro enterprise on their own. I felt that education in public leadership is the need of time not only for sustainable development but also because phenomenon of farmers suicide, increase in imbalance between urban and rural areas, and within the rural its remote areas, have enhanced social discontent despite rapid growth. Spread of Naxalism is a direct threat to democracy – it is a time bomb, which is clicking.

After my retirement from Government in January 2006, I had an occasion to interact on this subject with Shri Nathu Puri. He is an eminent Indian industrialist based in U.K, with his enterprises spread all over the world. He was a truck driver in early 60s in a remote village of Punjab, who moved to U.K. to grow as an entrepreneur. He has set up the Indian Institute of Advanced Research at Koba, Gandhinagar for research and education in biotechnology through his Puri Foundation for Education in India. He was also thinking on similar lines. It was therefore thought to set up a School for Public Leadership (International School for Public Leadership – ISPL), which can take up this task under Puri Foundation for Education, India based in Gujarat.

We started the leadership programme from December 2006 for grass root level existing leaders like Chairmen of Milk Cooperative societies, Women leaders, Chairmen of Self Help Groups, Trade Union Leaders, and for graduate and post-graduate students and university teachers. Some other like-minded persons like Late Prof. Anil Bhatt and Prof. D.M. Pestonjee (retired faculties of Indian Institute of Management) joined in these efforts.

Interaction during the programmes with participants confirmed that existing leaders need to be strengthened, as a number of participants are not aware of their own role in their organization even in what are called developed villages. It was equally true that students have also no clear perception of public leadership, its dimensions, and, availability of immense opportunities in it. The perception was that it meant political leadership of elected public bodies. It is only for politicians – it is a dirty business!.

Another important realization was that despite the democratic process of election based on adult franchise, and that our constitution empowers that any voter can become an elected leader, there are areas and areas where leaders get elected not on individual merits but by family background, by caste influence, by muscle or money power. Increasingly small or big contractors are capturing such positions at village level or even at taluka level and many of such persons do not have the public good as their priority.

The far-flung remote areas and tribal areas have also problems. Here leaders who are elected even on merits have had in many cases, no idea of what are their responsibilities and authority. In all such cases the local self government bodies or cooperatives are under command of Secretary of Village Panchayat, or of Cooperatives, who does what he likes. This dependence on subordinate staff by elected leaders seemed to be a common phenomenon – all over.

It was in this background the idea of writing a book on public leadership came in with an intention that it will be useful to both existing leaders and future leaders wherever they are and make them conscious that one can become a leader by choice, determination and efforts. Effort is to make it as simple as possible with illustrations

I found that the leadership was also the most important matter in our ancient days and our scriptures have dealt with it extensively – I have drawn upon that along with wisdom of modern pundits in this subject. The illustration of leaders have been taken from its galaxy, they are neither comprehensive nor a final list but they are very good examples.

This is not an entirely original work. I have borrowed, with gratitudes. This is not even a perfect guide on the subject and nor are all conclusions final. The leadership is a very dynamic subject but an effort is made to touch some aspects of it, which concern the existing, and the future leaders of our country and deal with it in an extensive manner, with an intension that this will be useful for all those who have interest in  his subject.

INTRODUCTION

‘Leadership’ is the key to success for a Nation or an Organisation for its survival as well as for its growth. The Prime Minister of a country, or the Chief Minister of a state, or the Sarpanches at a local village level Panchayat (Council), heads of business organizations and non-business organisations all these are key leaders. Only a successful leader can foster growth and harmony and lack of it results in the downfall of organizations or for that matter of a nation. In the modern context it is most vital in Management education.

Leadership offers a vast range of opportunities to young people – the future generations – they must know what it is – how to identify such opportunities and work towards it.

Be it be a society or a country or an organisation– it needs capable leaders who are transparent, wedded to their organization and accountable to people. The continuation of a democratic system or successful running of an organization depends on this. It is, therefore, important that the existing leaders also know what their responsibilities are and what they have to learn to meet the challenges of the development process.

The present narration deals with all these and with various facets of leadership and its dynamics and outlines the opportunities available – which can be grabbed through effective steps. It confirms that leadership can be acquired by choice and by persistent efforts. It is not a matter of fate or destiny. It deals with qualities, which a leader must have, how to maintain the leadership and be remembered forever and that involves how it can be lost and lead to disgrace. It deals with various types and styles of leadership and its requirements – role of the managers, the followers and the people.

It also incorporates extracts from our Indian ancient treatise like Yoga Vashistha,, Manusmruti, Vidur Neeti, Mahabharat, Bhagvat Geeta, teachings of Gautam Buddha and advice from political master of his time ‘Chanakya’ along with scripts from stories of Akbar – Birbal and Panchatantra. It also contains quotes from the famous Chinese author Lao Tzu. These words of wisdom are very relevant even today.

A special reference is made about Educational leadership, which is responsible for building up of the future generations.

All this is intended to be useful to the existing leaders as well as the future generations. The leaders must be prepared by a nation for its own stability, growth, prosperity and well being of all its citizens

LEADERS  (Conclusion)
An inevitable force for sustainable growth.

They are important. They lead the nation, society organizations.They are key to sustainable growth.

Nations, organizations have grown whenever they have good leaders – they have excelled whenever they have out-standing leaders and vice versa is equally true – bad leaders have created chaos – countries have lost their freedom and many people have become poor – or a large segment of population have lost their lives with continuing conflicts within society. In the case of organizations – have become bankrupt with hundred thousands of people losing their jobs.

History is full of such examples. Every day such happenings are taking place – whether they are countries in Africa, Asia or Europe or multinational or national giants companies in western or eastern world.

But society, its educationists, the people themselves do not pay attention to this. They do not bother about their leaders. They do not choose the right leaders. They do not check existing leaders when they start going in wrong direction – but more importantly they do not train the future generation for developing as out-standing leaders.

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What Ails Our Agriculture

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By

Dr. Kirit Shelat

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Sustainable Development

 

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