US Commando Strike in Waziristan hamidm#77:

Don't use us for your bad policies. We don't have any commie banks, all of our banks are quite profitable, even after losing large amounts to your sinking housing sector.

We do have a Canada Housing Mortgage Corporation, which insures housing loans; it is a govt. entity but runs strictly on business principles and it won't insure sub-prime mortgages.

US Commando Strike in Waziristan bulleya:

You are right about their being no consensus regarding action. The fact is that there is a consensus even on action among the leaders of the Nato countries, but there is no desire in the general population to be "qurbani ke bakray" for this cause. This is as true of Harper and Canada as it is for Sarkozi and France or for Berlusconi and Italy.

But where there is a strong consensus is to put more pressure on Pakistan. The pressure, I think, would be even more to clean up the act of the agencies which are suspected of supporting the taleban than to engage in military action against them. There, I think, the civilian government has an advantage over Musharraf as it does not depend upon the US for its survival, although Zardari may have too many skeletons in the cupboard and therefore quite vulnerable to manipulations.

US Commando Strike in Waziristan I have never seen such a consensus among western countries as it does now with respect to Pakistan and Afghanistan ; it was not there for Iraq, not for Iran, not for Vietnam, nor for Cuba, nor for China. The only other recent case was that for action in Bosnia and Serbia.

This does not necessarily mean that the Nato forces will attack Pakistan; that would be disastrous for them and a sure way to talebanise Pakistan. They also cannot jeopardise the logistic support provided by Pakistan.

While Musharraf was adept at running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, he also created a trust deficit for Pakistan which is his legacy for Zardari and Kayani.

And let's not forget, Taleban are still not without their supporters in the Pakistani establishment; the likes of Shireen Mazari are still alive and kicking.

The way ahead is too murky for any kind of predictions; all one can say is that it's a new ballgame now: aagay aagay dekhiye hota hai kya?

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! Majumdar#62:

In general, it is true that political parties would favour the country of the majority community, but you should remember that the majority political party in Kashmir was headed by Sheikh Abdullah, a friend of Nehru and no friend of Jinnah.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! pinku#57:

If you think that those things will resolve Kashmir issues for you, go ahead and try; but don't start complaining if the blowback makes things worse; remember, there were no bombs exploding in India before the Babri masjid demolition and Ahmedabad killings.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! majumdar#47:

I have read a somewhat different version of what happened wrt princely states. The Congress did not ask for division on the basis of religion of the majority but to take the will of the state political parties into consideration; Jinnah rejected this proposition and said that only the sovereign rulers should have the authority to make such a decision; the British accepted Jinnah's position. As you have correctly pointed out, he was thinking primarily of Hyderabad because he thought that Kashmir would fall into his lap like a ripened apple.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! nkg#41:

I do not doubt Nehru's intentions; I am sure that he loved India as much as you and I do and probably more, and he had visions of a great India playing an important role in the world.

His father was not a "munshi" but a well-known lawyer of Allahabad and his grandfather was a darogha in Delhi. He was swayed by the Fabian Socialist philosophy which was quite fashionable in the intellectual circles in England during the time he was a student there; if he had gone to Chicago during the 60s, he would have been a Friedman free-market man.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! HP:

You are correct in assuming that I have not taken any classes in political science or international affairs; the three leaders that I have discussed, however, are routinely referred to as charismatic leaders in common parlance.

Nehru also seems to satisfy some of the definitions posted by you:

"Charismatic Leadership involves creating a self-image so powerful that people are naturally drawn to you."
This was certainly true of Nehru.

"Conger & Kanungo (1998) describe five behavioral attributes of Charismatic Leaders that indicate a more transformational viewpoint:
Vision and articulation;
Sensitivity to the environment;
Sensitivity to member needs;
Personal risk taking;
Performing unconventional behavior."

Some, if not all, of these characteristics applied to JLN,



"Musser (1987) notes that charismatic leaders seek to instill both commitment to ideological goals and also devotion to themselves."

This was certainly true of Nehru; he influenced a whole generation of Indians to commit to his vision of a socialist, secular, democratic, non-aligned India.
As far as loyalty, it has already went beyond him and passed on to three generations of his descendants.

"Max Weber distinguished three ideal types of political leadership, domination and authority:

charismatic domination (familial and religious),
traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonial, feudalism) and
legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy)."

One could argue that Nehru met almost all of these criteria to a greater or lesser extent.

"Charismatic authority grows out of the personal charm or the strength of an individual personality. It was described by Weber in a lecture as "the authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace (charisma)"; he distinguished it from the other forms of authority by stating "Men do not obey him [the charismatic ruler] by virtue of tradition or statute, but because they believe in him."

This almost seems to describe Nehru.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! pinku#29:

"Nehru's best contribution was creation of a political environment that was stable even if messy... "

I don't think that the political situation was too messy during Nehru's time, unless you are referring to the economy.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! SR/quin:

On present reckoning, I do not see much difference between Obama and McCain on Iraq and Afghanistan, the two seem to be converging, I am afraid however that Obama would be more belligerent to "prove" his patriotism; on social issues, I do not expect Obama to veer too much towards welfare state, although I wouldn't mind if the US citizens have the same kind of access to medicare that the citizens of most civilised countries have.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! ahmadmadani:

Madani saheb:

Too early to say anything about Rahul Gandhi but early indications are that he might turn out to be like his father.

The Maruti car, including the name, was actually Sanjay Gandhi's project although he died before its complettion. Another of his very successful projects was the Noida satellite township. And if Indira had not ended her Emergency when all active opposition to it had died down, that scoundrel may have solved one of India's greatest obstacles to progress, namely the unrestricted population growth.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! tahmed#7:

"Nehru who laid the foundation ("western education", stable civilian governments) for India's "tryst with destiny

Western education and civilian govt. were both given to us by the British; Nehru can only take credit for not destroying them.

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! bulleya#10,11:

I largely agree with you (especially about my mediocre writings style).

I was not writing about India/Pak issues but I agree with you regarding the Kashmir issue (I used to have the same viewpoint as you re. cabinet mission plan but thanks to sadna's hard work and research of original documents and correspondence on this issue, I am less sure of that now). On Kashmir, he was totally inconsistent and contradictory; if he believed in a plebiscite, then it should have been held and he should have not used technical loopholes to get out of his commitment.

But if he really wanted Kashmir to be integrated with India, then regardless of the morality issues, he should not have introduced Article 370 which made it impossible to change the demography of Kashmir, which is the only way Kashmir problem could have been permanently resolved in India's favour. Here is an excerpt from Kuldip Nayar's recent column on this issue:

"Soon after Kashmir’s integration with India, then Home Minister Sardar Patel wanted some migrants from Pakistan to be settled in the Valley. Jawaharlal Nehru not only took him to task, but offered apologies to Sheikh Abdullah, then heading the Kashmir Government."

I agree with you that a visionary needs someone to complement his vision with management skills (which to me includes decision-making skills as well); if someone has both skills, it is "sone pe suhaaga".

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! tahmed32#7

Obama is proving more and more to be a normal politician. His acceptance speech was quite a barn burner, but it was more like someone trying to rally troops, with standard jibes against his opponent. Instead of a promise of change, I saw it as more of the same.

But as they say in Pindi, "hud-si tey rung kud-si".

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! Sanatani#5:

I do not regard Rajiv Gandhi as a charismatic leader but merely a member of a charismatic dynasty. I think that if he had not started off with a massacre of the sikhs and had managed the bofor affairs well, his legacy would not have been that bad; indeed, he started the process of economic reforms, in particular in the telecommmunications sector; remember, he started using a laptap!

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! rf786:

Yes, this is the message. As long as we don't get swept off our feet and do not treat them as messiahs who would deliver us to the promised land, it's okay to have someone provide a vision.