Sure, Google has become a lifeline and a crutch for wannabe academics who are too lazy to conduct research in the old fashioned and plodding way. Sure, it has become a dangerous Weapon of Mass Distraction for pseudo-pundits. Yet, there are moments when Google delivers amazingly poignant and penetrating results by the time you have blinked a few times. So I typed “obey” and clicked on Google search in the Indian version of the website. It took 46 seconds for the monstrous conveyor belt of information to tell me that it has found 16,300,000 results. When I typed “revolt”, Google took 44 seconds to tell me it had found 9,980,000 results. Imagine: twice as many results for ‘obey’ than ‘revolt’. Here is some more: 7,160,000 hits for “defy” and 537,000,000 hits for “follow”. So if Google search is an indicator of human behaviour, 8 people “follow” for every one rebel that chooses to “defy”! For the love of my life or a saffron tinged God, I cannot visualise Rajnath Singh, President of the Bharatiya Janata Party, striking the keys of his laptop furiously and doing a Google search for ‘rebels’. If he did, he would curse many of his saffron comrades-in-arms for so blithely “defying” Google and so dramatically re-enacting a farce called A Million Mutinies. I wonder what the Nobel laureate VS Naipaul, a recent ‘convert’ to saffron resurgence, would have to say about the shenanigans revolving around Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Vasundhara Raje Scindia… I suspect Rajnath Singh might ‘expel’ Google or even ask Larry Page and Sergey Brin for an ‘explanation’ or ‘clarification’. Or may be he can go back to historical Sanskrit texts and read again about how and why the great playwright Kalidasa was hell bent on using an axe to chop off the branch of a tree where he happened to be sitting.
Such frivolous levity aside, the suicidal pyrotechnics displayed by India’s ‘principal’ opposition party and the breathless media coverage have largely ignored two things: the first and less important one is that the revolt in the BJP will not really matter in the long run (Like, voters deserve the leaders they elect, a party too deserves the leaders it anoints). The second, and more important perspective buried in the tidal wave of breaking news is the seminal importance of ‘rebels’ and ‘revolts’ throughout human history. You can safely conclude even after a cursory glance at recorded history that human civilisation would have remained stuck in the stone age if words like revolt, defy, protest, question, criticise and mock were not so intrinsic to human behaviour.
The world (with due apologies to Thomas Friedman) would have remained as flat as an LED TV if Copernicus and Galileo did not have the guts’ to face the Inquisition. Perhaps the Pharaohs would still be ruling Egypt if Moses had not revolted and parted the Red Sea to lead his tribe away from slavery. There is no doubt that monarchy would have remained a permanent political system across the world if the French had not chopped off the head of Marie Antoinette. Every school in every country in the world would have taught children that Adam and Eve lived in a paradise already full of living beings if Charles Darwin had not infuriated Christian conservatives and evangelicals with his ‘Origin of Species’. Can you imagine the all white regime in South Africa giving up apartheid out of goodwill and a guilty conscience without rebels like Nelson Mandela compelling them to do so? It would be impossible to now dissect the greatest failed experiment of modern history called Communism if a well to do businessman called Fredrick Engels had not financed an indigent and eclectic philosopher called Karl Marx. And the term ‘stimuli package’ would have remained forever in the realm of unknown if John Maynard Keynes had not revolted against the rigid ideological moorings of classical economics and suggested ‘pump priming’ as a way out of the Great Depression. And really, can you think of the exhilaration of one day-and even 20-20 cricket if an Australian gentleman called Kerry Packer had not organised a revolt by legendary cricketers? Music, art, literature, politics, sports, economics, philosophy, religion – almost anything that directly or indirectly affects human beings and their daily lives is the product of a series of revolts and a dazzling gallery of rebels. Che Guevara might have become the modern poster boy of rebellion. But the romance and tragedy associated with rebels has been with us throughout our existence as a species-in recorded history as well as mythology. You can bet your last throw of a saffron dice that Karna is probably the greatest rebel that Mahabharata threw up. You may praise Arjuna and the Pandavas; but secretly both you and me have always admired Karna. That is power of a rebel – to captivate and capture your imagination.
Contemporary Indian history too is replete with rebels. And there have been new rebels who have rebelled against former rebels who might have become establishment figures. Who can deny that Mahatma Gandhi is perhaps the greatest rebel in our history? And yet, it was Subhash Chandra Bose who revolted against the original rebel Mahatma and went on to form the Indian National Army. It was Dr BR Ambedkar who openly revolted against Gandhi despite the latter’s stated resolve to ‘emancipate the Harijans’. So far – reaching has been the impact of Dr Ambedkar's revolt that Mayawati now rules India's largest state – Uttar Pradesh. After independence, there were two more tall leaders who rebelled against the Congress – the party which had rebelled against British rule. The rebellion led by Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee has resulted in the BJP emerging as a powerful political force – despite the suicidal traits that it displays today. And the rebellion fostered by Ram Manohar Lohia continues to create a few million new mutinies. For better, or for worse, rebels do make a lasting difference. And what the heck, they always make life more interesting!
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
Such frivolous levity aside, the suicidal pyrotechnics displayed by India’s ‘principal’ opposition party and the breathless media coverage have largely ignored two things: the first and less important one is that the revolt in the BJP will not really matter in the long run (Like, voters deserve the leaders they elect, a party too deserves the leaders it anoints). The second, and more important perspective buried in the tidal wave of breaking news is the seminal importance of ‘rebels’ and ‘revolts’ throughout human history. You can safely conclude even after a cursory glance at recorded history that human civilisation would have remained stuck in the stone age if words like revolt, defy, protest, question, criticise and mock were not so intrinsic to human behaviour.
The world (with due apologies to Thomas Friedman) would have remained as flat as an LED TV if Copernicus and Galileo did not have the guts’ to face the Inquisition. Perhaps the Pharaohs would still be ruling Egypt if Moses had not revolted and parted the Red Sea to lead his tribe away from slavery. There is no doubt that monarchy would have remained a permanent political system across the world if the French had not chopped off the head of Marie Antoinette. Every school in every country in the world would have taught children that Adam and Eve lived in a paradise already full of living beings if Charles Darwin had not infuriated Christian conservatives and evangelicals with his ‘Origin of Species’. Can you imagine the all white regime in South Africa giving up apartheid out of goodwill and a guilty conscience without rebels like Nelson Mandela compelling them to do so? It would be impossible to now dissect the greatest failed experiment of modern history called Communism if a well to do businessman called Fredrick Engels had not financed an indigent and eclectic philosopher called Karl Marx. And the term ‘stimuli package’ would have remained forever in the realm of unknown if John Maynard Keynes had not revolted against the rigid ideological moorings of classical economics and suggested ‘pump priming’ as a way out of the Great Depression. And really, can you think of the exhilaration of one day-and even 20-20 cricket if an Australian gentleman called Kerry Packer had not organised a revolt by legendary cricketers? Music, art, literature, politics, sports, economics, philosophy, religion – almost anything that directly or indirectly affects human beings and their daily lives is the product of a series of revolts and a dazzling gallery of rebels. Che Guevara might have become the modern poster boy of rebellion. But the romance and tragedy associated with rebels has been with us throughout our existence as a species-in recorded history as well as mythology. You can bet your last throw of a saffron dice that Karna is probably the greatest rebel that Mahabharata threw up. You may praise Arjuna and the Pandavas; but secretly both you and me have always admired Karna. That is power of a rebel – to captivate and capture your imagination.
Contemporary Indian history too is replete with rebels. And there have been new rebels who have rebelled against former rebels who might have become establishment figures. Who can deny that Mahatma Gandhi is perhaps the greatest rebel in our history? And yet, it was Subhash Chandra Bose who revolted against the original rebel Mahatma and went on to form the Indian National Army. It was Dr BR Ambedkar who openly revolted against Gandhi despite the latter’s stated resolve to ‘emancipate the Harijans’. So far – reaching has been the impact of Dr Ambedkar's revolt that Mayawati now rules India's largest state – Uttar Pradesh. After independence, there were two more tall leaders who rebelled against the Congress – the party which had rebelled against British rule. The rebellion led by Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee has resulted in the BJP emerging as a powerful political force – despite the suicidal traits that it displays today. And the rebellion fostered by Ram Manohar Lohia continues to create a few million new mutinies. For better, or for worse, rebels do make a lasting difference. And what the heck, they always make life more interesting!
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
