Historian and writer Vikram Sampath said here on Sunday that there has been a paradigm shift and transformation in the country taking place in various fields over the last 10 years, underlining the aspirations of the people.
He spoke after releasing a book titled Power Within: The Leadership Legacy of Narendra Modi, authored by R. Balasubramaniam, at the Mysuru Literature Festival.
The author is a well-known scholar and public policy advocate who works with tribals in H.D. Kote and has established Swami Vivekandanda Youth Movement among others.
Mr. Sampath said it had taken the country 75 years of Independence to talk about building toilets in every house, ensuring piped water connection, and electricity, or providing LPG cylinders to reduce the drudgery of cooking using smoking chullahs.
He said these are things taken for granted in many countries but the fact remains that a majority of Indians lived without such a benefit. It needed a Prime Minister to talk about it from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Mr. Sampath added.
Though the Prime Minister was criticised by many for referring to such “inane or lowly’’ issues, the fact remains that he had understood the pulse of the people.
Referring to the book Mr. Sampath said it was an example of presenting a leadership paradigm from the Indian perspective and it was not a biography of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
For long it is the Western paradigm and framework of what constitutes leadership that has dominated the academic and the intellectual world and has to be replaced by examples and studies with an Indian perspective and this book is one such example, said Mr. Sampath.
Though there are many Indian examples from history on leadership the rulers in India were presented as oppressors as defined by the West, but this is far from the truth, said Mr. Sampath. He cited the examples of Maharani Ahalyabai Holkar and Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar as providing an Indian perspective on the definition of leadership and hoped that the endeavour of Mr. Balasubramabian would span more books on the Indian vision of what leadership was all about.
There was a panel discussion with the author curated by Deepthi Navaratna. The two-day literature festival which concluded on Sunday, was conducted by Mysuru Literary Forum Charitable Trust and Mysuru Book Club-2015 and scores of authors and writers were part of the two-day event. Shubha Sanjay Urs, Director of the festival and others were present.
Published - July 07, 2024 08:23 pm IST
