In Lecture

Report on Lectures by Guest Speakers

September 15, 2009
Smt. Pankaja Munde – Palwe

The first eminent lecture for MPG-05 (2009-10) was delivered by young and dynamic Smt. Pankaja Munde Palwe. A young management graduate with over 15 years of experience in campaigning.
During her address to MPG-05 participants, she quoted her father Shri. Gopinath Munde, Leader BJP Maharashtra that Bringing smiles to peoples’ face is not an easy thing. It needs lot of efforts, hard work and dedication. Also, Politics is not a cake walk, it involves a lot of hard work and a lot goes into the thinking process. She was exposed to politics at a young age of four. Ever since she has been observing political leaders and their campaigns and in the process developed lot of respect for them as it involved hardships and lot of commitment and sacrifice.
According to her, the foremost fundamental right of an Indian is voting and each one of us should exercise this right. Rural India has been a deprived of many things which we urbanites enjoy. They even struggle for the basic necessities and infrastructure like - water, road, and electricity, basic health care facilities etc. Inspite of all odds, voting percentage is more in rural parts than the urban areas.  This just shows our political awareness as compared to the rural people. It is so unfortunate that urban constituencies play a major role while deciding the priorities of the government.
How can we contribute?

Speaking on prevailing system of “Dynasticism in Politics”, she reiterated that we as Indian citizens support it. Reason, whenever we are mesmerized by a leader and his / her leadership we start expecting the same from the second generation and so on. This is not only prevalent in India but in the entire world in other democracies too. Dynasticity is respected in India because the Leadership is respected in India.
Dynasticity can be good or bad depending on various factors, majority of them being –
Name, Fame and the Financial condition of the candidate.
The need of the hour is that youth takes the challenge of leadership and comes out with innovative ideas to take up rural development as 70% of the population still resides in Villages and towns in India and work towards reducing the prevalent corrupt practices in all sectors in India.

3rd October 2009

Shri. Anees Chisti

It is interesting that Shri Anees Chisti started his talk by mumbling something in Arabic; it was evident that what he was saying was akin to a prayer and sure enough he shared with us that he had narrated two ‘shlokas’ from the Quran. The use of the word ‘Shlokas’ seemed deliberate here; and this seemed to be a central theme of his talk to the participants. The idea was to get the participants to understand the nuances of Islam in a language, or through a set of ideas, with which the majority of the class was familiar. If nothing, this definitely represented the scholar’s attempt to understand other religions and his attempt trace each religion’s link to the Almighty.
Incidentally he translated the passages for us: “If any one slew a person it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved the life of a person it would be like he saved the life of the whole people”. 
Apparently he was making an attempt to unravel the beauty and benevolence of Islam which has been much maligned in the public sphere by irrational fundamentalists. And this was another of his themes in the address.
He spoke at length about the basics of Islam, he explained how Islam was not born in the Second Millenium. Islam has its origins way back during Adam’s time and there have been a total of 1,24,000 prophets (which included Jesus Christ) and of which Prophet Mohammad was the last. He traced the historical context of Islam’s growth, how in a matter of 50 to 60 years from the time of the coming of the Quran, it has spread from Spain to India. How from 711 to 1948 Islamic rulers ruled in India—1948 being the year when Hyderabad was liberated from the Nizam.
Speaking of this long history he sought to dispel many myths that were built around the Islamic influence in India and for example he explained how when Muslim Invaders came to India, amongst the chieftains who stood in the defense of Hindu kings where staunch Muslims. 
He spoke at length about the contents of the Quran and also explained in detail how Islam had three important components: Aqaid (which stood for faith and belief in the oneness of God, in the prophet, in life after death and in the holiness of saints of other faiths), Ibadaat ( which included specific practice of faith in the form of Prayer, fast, alms and pilgrimage) and Muamlat (which indicated a social code and behavior).  
Moving on to the influence of Islam in India he spoke of the Ganga-Jamuna Tahazeeb (Ganga-Jamuna culture) which had evolved over the years. He symbolically spoke of the monuments built in the name of Islam on the banks of the Jamuna and the sacredness of the river Ganga to Hindus and spoke about the confluence of the rivers to give what is called the confluence of cultures, which has evolved in the more than a thousand years of co-existence. He spoke of the Urdu language which has played a unifying role amidst the 1,625 mother tongues and 3000 languages with written scripts known in India.
He finally ended his talk by pointing out that this nation India will truly rise to heights on the day when, if a fire burns, everyone will respond in an earnest effort to turn it off without so much as to pausing to ponder as to who is the owner of the belongings, whether the fire has ignited over the belongings of one community or that, this religion or that. 
Q & A: He then took on questions and the participants did not spare the scholar in asking what was on their minds, though of course they ensured they were not aggressive in their demeanor.  And the scholar responded well from his vast wisdom.
When he was asked why people cannot be just humans and should be Muslims, or Hindus or whatever, he responded at length and the sum and substance of what he said was that the aim of any religion is to build an ultimate human being. Since the universities were not offering degrees to develop ultimate human beings the religions were taking on the task.
Answering to a question on dietary practices he pointed out that it was a ticklish issue since the concept of ‘life’ was yet to be defined precisely. He said that even grains and plants have life in them. Then there are tiny live microbes in curds; so the question is where does one draw a line? He pointed out that only four animals were admissible for slaughter in the Islamic parlance and he also pointed out that dietary habits also depended on the vegetation in a particular region; how logical would it be if we were to force vegetarianism on to people in Siberia or in desert lands where there was hardly any vegetation? 
In an answer to another question he also explained that in Islam there was complete codification of what has to be done in a particular situation. He explained how the system of Fathwa is used to give clear cut decisions in terms of yes and no. Where there is supposed to be no confusion and that there are rules on even the latest things like cloning. He explained how after his arrival at Madina, the prophet had helped bring peace there by creating what is popularly known as the first written constitution. It had 72 points in all and he explained the significance of some of the points there in, how they helped people come together as a team. 
One very interesting question was about doership… one of the participants wanted to know if everything was done by God, was the bad that is in society also done by God? The scholar seemed amused for being put in a tight spot but in his humble demeanor said that he would try to answer it. He explained it through and Islamic perspective which indicated that there is a franchisee kind of principle that is in effect where an individual has been given individuality in this world by God that he may respond to situations, and in this each individual is accountable for his deeds. It is wrong to blame the Headquarters for the acts of the franchisee he said.
There was a question on terrorism. Elaborating on the same he discussed the realities of the present situation. He pointed out that one of the biggest terrorists were the police themselves and specifically singled out the practice of encounter deaths to indicate that this is not acceptable to good society. He talked about the steps taken to wean away Islamic youth from terrorism and despite adversities how youth in Islam are advised to use the legitimate means available in the democracy to solve problems. He said much effort was on and he himself was involved in the same.
Finally there was a question regarding loyalty to Islam and to the Nation; “which came first?” A participant wanted to know. He answered that it was Islamic to follow the law of the land in which they dwelled. He explained the rituals that were practiced during the burial of a Muslim and explained how there is a deep connect with the soil of that land in the prayers. He also explained that when Muslims of India went to Arabia they were guests there and had virtually no rights there and had to follow what they were told to do; there they are identified as Indians. In India though it was home for them and they had their rights. When the law said something in India they were bound to follow it, but as citizens they had the right to seek redressal for something that was not proper, they had the right to make demands to the Prime Minister and the President, they could elect someone or reject them, they had the recourse to law and the courts, and staying within the framework of the constitution and the laws they had to practice their religion.
All in all the participants came out with questions covering possibly the entire spectrum of misconceptions regarding Muslims in India; and the scholar clearly came out with convincing answers in the short span of time he had. It was a revealing interaction.

October 7th, 2009
Shri. Anil Dave

On 7th October, we were fortunate to have Shri Anil Dave as an eminent faculty. Shri Dave is Rajya Sabha MP (Member of Parliament) and Madhya Pradesh State Vice-President of BJP.
He gave us a lecture on leadership and politics. He said that leadership can be inculcated six months prior to the birth of a child. To become a leader, three things are necessary. Firstly, a person should spend two days with Patwari (one who maintains land records). Secondly, spend a day at a police station and thirdly, spend a day at collector’s office. Talking about perfection, he said that perfection is nothing but perfect balance and one needs to have spiritual, physical and mental perfectness. He asked everyone to do at least one non-political work in life. According to him, there are three stages in leadership – creation (raw material should be good), construction (build up) and cremation (good approach makes good landing). On being asked about team building, he said that allocation of work is very important and for making strategy, selection of words is very important. He highlighted three qualities of a good leader – lok bhasha (the leader should use the language of the people), lok bhoosha (the leader should dress up decently) and lok vyavahar (the leader should not ignore the ground-level activists).
Through his interactive sessions participants got to know the nuances of leadership and the hard realities of current political situation in India.
                  

Octoberr 9th, 2009

Shri. Tushar Arun Gandhi

28th October 2009

Dr. D. K. Sankaran

At the outset Dr Sankaran, who is an alumnus of the Loyala college in Pune and an IAS officer of 1970 Batch in Maharashtra cadre, appreciated the concept of school of government.
He commenced his lecture by bringing out the basic difference between previous and contemporary bureaucratic systems. He said that earlier the bureaucracy acted like a fulcrum between executive politicians and administration and contemporary bureaucracy is giving inputs to political executives in the field of policy making and policy formation. Of course he was trying to draw attention to the fact that the earlier leaders were statesmen who knew how to drive things and the bureaucracy acted in support but then there has been a general degradation in standards and more or less the bureaucracy acts in total submission to the political leadership. He said that for the shift one needs to consider the Socio-economic–political conditions which influence the bureaucracy. He highlighted the recent situation of Vidarbha as an example which shows the limitations of bureaucracy such as lack of commitment, corruption, leakages in money channels, various loopholes in monitoring system etc.
After independence the basic function of the administrative services had not changed much but post 1950 an evolution in the field of bureaucracy has indeed taken place. In such situations like Vidarbha, and such other or worse cases, the role of bureaucracy is very cruicial, but there is little expertise in the present arrangement. According to him, in order to avoid such extreme circumstances there is a need of well trained people and sophisticated infrastructure which needs to be a part of the bureaucratic system. In his opinion this will reduce lots of vulnerabilities and embarrassment to the political executive.
As a paradigm shift in a bureaucracy is observed from advisory to contemporary situation where it is giving less inputs, the introduction of technology in all sectors such as Mumbai Varali sea link, e tendering, and various procedures etc. is playing a constructive role.
He also made references to the bureaucratic problems of transferring administrative officer from one post to another after short tenures and explained its role in weakening the structure though it gave the political leadership authority over the bureaucracy.
In his opinion the administrative services should learn something from Armed forces in respect of the transparency and procedure of promotions of officers to higher levels. This will help to manage system in time bound manner and will save a lot of Government money spend on moving people around.
In respect of policy making there is a great paradigm shift that has arisen out of a massive shift from the conditions required in a slow and undeveloped economy to those required in a fast growing impressive economy; the challenges are new. To reach to these ambitious goals the system has to be planned well in advance. In this procedure agriculture sector cannot be ignored and shift in employment pattern cannot be overlooked.
To run the most expensive Government schemes and to make them available to aam aadmi the entire system has to be well connected and reformed so as to channelize the resources from centre to state to gram panchayat. This will help the cause of development at all levels of the society and catalyse the process of development.

16th November 2009

Shri. James Michael Lyngdoh

Shri. J. M. Lyngdoh, former chief election commissioner has visited our institution on 17th Nov. 2009 and has given an insight in the electoral processes and need for electoral reforms both through lectures and question answer session.
He has talked about the election commission and its powers. He talked about plenary power of the election commissioner has been used for free and fair elections. He talked about role of money power in Indian politics and the state funding of election. His view about state funding was that state can’t prevent the use extra money, for which an efficient mechanism is needed. He shared his experiences and problems he faced as an election commissioner and also stated about the power of election commission in which it acts as super police force also. He sought for many electoral reforms and report of National Commission on review of working of Indian Constitution, which suggested for introduction of List System instead of first part the ......system. He supported the current procedure of removal of Election Commission and supremacy of Chief Election Commission. He said that Election Commission power to regulate election is unlimited which should confirm to the law made by the parliament and rule of law.
We got a great insight of the Election Commission functioning, electoral process and need for electoral reforms.

19th November 2009

Dr. Vinay Sahasrabudhe

Shri. Vinay Sahasrabudhe, Director General, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, Mumabi, visited MIT-SOG and interacted with the participants on 19thth November 2009 on the topic “Democracy, Populism and Political Parties.  In his session, he has highlighted various challenges of the current political process; most of them according to him are based on populism which is flourished through political system. In his view, in the present day fragmented political system unless having a charismatic leader like Gandhi, consensus is very difficult. For a better system one  will have to think about the changes which we can inculcate and introduce for a better system. He assessed the strengths and weakness of populism. In his view even the positice decisions, genuinely in the interests of the people at large may ultimately hamper the cause of democracy since it will betray the lack of judgementas also conviction on the part of decision makers. A surging wave of short lived but aggressive public opinion, driven more often than not by myopic and hence potentially anti-people positions, can do nothing but disservice to the concept of participative democracy. In his conviction which is why, populism, ultimately can only harm the very concept of democratic governance. He asserted that today, when we as a nation are faced with multiple challenges populist politics is eating into the vitals of our democratic institutions and weakening with every passing day, whatever the elements of good governance that we may still be having. He mentioned that there is little wonder that senior American journalist and political commentator David Broder, has often pointed out that there is a widening gap between the ‘acceptance of democracy’ and its ‘effectiveness’. Mr. David Broder primarily held five different factors responsible for this situation and they are the death of ideology, the decline of state, the decline of religion, low esteem of politics as a profession, and the irresponsible role of media in general. As one can make out, the roots of all these factors are fundamentally in populism. In his view, Populism—like terrorism—knows no ideology, it reduces the relevance of state, it brings the relevance of any doctrine, including religion; to an end, and all this naturally leads to the low esteem of politics as a profession. The next  factor i.e. the irresponsible role of media could be described as just another byproduct of populism. In his concluding remarks he propagated that it is urgently required that a comprehensive law regulating and disciplining the functioning of parties is a need of the hour. According to him, Such legislation should cover the following aspects of party functioning –Establishing a political party – Making the process of forming a new political party more serious and elaborate., introducing a provision for mandatory publication of Annual report of Party activities, recruitment – Mandatory maintenance of Party Membership Register at the State and District levels., Internal democracy – Mandatory holding of elections for party office bearers under a framework to be laid down by the Election Commission, transparency -- Mandatory publication of annual accounts of parties, at the national and state levels, human Resource Development -- on the lines of party supported foundations in Germany (stiftungs), efforts should be made to explore establishing training and research foundations for and by parties with a partial financial assistance from the government.  In his conclusion he said that if populism is to have no place citizens will have to assert. Alert and active citizenry could be the only guarantee conditions in which politicians and parties may not be able to take voters for granted and then for a ride. Remembering   Harold Laski’s words, he said “let us elect leaders who refuse to be led by the masses. Let us elect those who will ably lead us from the front”. He also detailed the activities of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabhodinis activites and functioning as the training institute and the challenges ahead.

20th November 2009

Shri. Awadesh Kumar Singh

Shri Awadesh Kumar Singh, National vice President, Jago Party, visited MIT-SOG and interacted with the Participants on 20th November, 2009.  He started his session by convincing the participants the need for a new party and the vision and mission of Jago party. He mentioned that in order to know any system one must know the changing economic principles of that system. He elaborated the economic history of India, failure of the socialist system, and the future plan to implement the missions of Jago party’s manifesto, strength and weaknesses of Jago party and their future strategy.  He remined the participants that Jago party was started by Mr. Deepak Mittal. He mentioned that the entire governance system is too complicated. In his interaction, he compared the both systems or socialism and capitalism. Our country is not socialist or capitalist, it is socialistic system. While highlighting the features of socialistic system he mentioned that in socialist system government is core stakeholder, mainly in charge of major functions.  Private sector will be there, but under strict regulation. Attempt towards redistribution of income will be there. But he mentioned that socialist system generates corruption. He also elaborated the imbalance between demand and supply of skilled labor as per our current educational system. He elaborated the details of inefficiency, lack of innovation, job security and lazy culture of government office.  In his views government is funding for their inefficiencies and impotency. Socialist system in his views is failure everywhere in the world, as human psychologies is same everywhere. As there is high taxation will not allow the growth of corruption and lack of performance of private sectors. In the name of the poor, the middle class I being looted. He has given the examples of collapse of USSR, Fall of Berlin war as failure of socialist system. He stressed that even Chinese are going for Capitalist type of economy through corporate farming and special economic zones. He stressed that the capitalism is the only system that work to have efficiency and success. He has given the examples of success of capitalism. In his view more freedom will lead to lessening of poverty. His Jago party also is advocating for the capitalistic form of economy, which is the solution for good governance and corruption in our administrative system. His party is also against the reservations of all kinds. The interaction with him has given a new thought process to the participants which in future enable them to clarify their stands about the best economic system available for future of India.

21th November 2009

Dr. Neelam Gorhe

Dr. Neelam Gorhe is the Member of the Legislative Council, Maharashtra and is the chairman of Stree Adhar Kendra, a Non Governmental Organisation working to protect the rights of the women. While trying to look at the history of women’s participation in political process she divided it into 3 phases. The first phase from 1848 to 1920 was an era where the debates were around the age of marriage for girls. It was in the same period which saw the rationalization of the social evil of Sati.  From 1920 to 1947 the women’s involvement in the political process, in the struggle for independence increased tremendously under the stalwart leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. There was a positive impact on the women’s participation in the political process. From 1948 to 1975 the five year plans started and the emphasis was laid on the reproductive rights of the women. All the welfare schemes in this period are related to the motherhood of the woman. It is only in 1975 when International Decade for Woman was declared that we saw more emphasis on the empowerment of women. It is evident that the women’s participation in the political process is a struggle that has evolved over the period of time.