In search of today’s community leaders

Where are our leaders? I do not mean political leaders. By our leaders, I mean those who lead us to think, lead us to examine ourselves, lead to a change, if necessary, in our ways. Lead us, not herd us; speak to us, not become loudspeakers; become our thought-partners, not our brainwashers.

Where are they?

When, with the virus at our throats, it was critical, life-savingly critical, that we thin ourselves out, do not huddle, do not breathe into each others’ nostrils, we saw the Kumbh Mela arranged.

Arranged? That will be putting it absurdly mildly. It was assembled like armies in a battle would be, with trains bringing thousands upon thousands of “pilgrims” into Haridwar for the holy dip. They came literally sticking to each other, for our trains are ever smaller than the humanity that swarms into them.

Readers from the world of Hindi cinema will remember Harindranath Chattopadhyay’s lyrics in the film Aashirwad. Brahmpur Dharampur; Dharmpur Brahmpur; Mangalore Bangalore; Bangalore Mangalore; Mandwa Khandwa; Khandwa Mandwa; Raipur Jaipur; Jaipur Raipur; Talegaon Malegaon; Malegaon Talegaon; Chhuk Chhuk Chhuk Chhuk…

That is how they came to Haridwar and dipped in the waters of the Ganga all at once, getting their bodies’ fluids to flow from one to the other. Why did they converge like that? Did they not know what risk they were taking? Would they, if asked to, jump into a fire? No. But they did precisely that.

Where are those women and men in our community – not in our political community but in our human community – who would and could yell to the chhuk chhuks – ruk, ruk, arey ruk (stop, stop, stop)? Newspaper columns, editorials, did, here and there, say that this was suicidal, murderous. But did our sants, mahants, pandits, purohits, babas, gurus, say a word to discourage this? No, they did not. They were silent. Silent as guilt. Silent as crime. Swami Agnivesh, if he had been alive, I believe, would have said stop. But then he is gone. To be fair, I must say here, that some Hindu leader might have done that and, if so, all honour to her or him. But not so as to make counter-waves.

In March 2020, similarly, Nizamuddin’s Markaz mosque in Delhi saw a nationwide gathering of Muslims at the Tablighi Jamaat, another super-spreader event which left at least 4,000 cases of the virus and 27 deaths. More recently, at the funeral of a religious figure in Budayun, hundreds converged.

Did any imam or maulvi, mullah or shaikh of note say — ruk, stop? Again, to be fair, I must say here, that some Islamic leader might have done precisely that and, if so, all honour to her or him.

In all these mass gatherings, participants have come from all over India, funded perhaps from both within and beyond India. They have come with piety, returned with the virus hovering around them.

Beyond religious sites, we have the ongoing farm protests. Who can doubt their commitment, their perseverance, their stamina? Who can question their right to protest for their cause? But who can fail to see the danger they are posing to themselves, their near and dear ones and others by being massed like this in the amphitheatre of the epidemic?

Unless community leaders speak up, we will not be able to prevent a third and a fourth and more waves, each deadlier than the one before. And we will be bringing to naught the work done by our frontline medical experts, health workers, at great and immediate personal risk to themselves.

When after the Chauri Chaura incident on February 4, 1922, Mahatma Gandhi called an abrupt halt to the burgeoning non-cooperation movement, he was being just the kind of leader who is missing now. The leader who sees that something going vitally wrong with the movement or the custom and ends it with one electric ruk, stop.

Jinhey naaz hai Hind par, voh kahan hain? (Where are those who are proud of India?)

So had Sahir Ludhianvi written in the song Mohammad Rafi sings for Guru Dutt in the film Pyaasa. They were leaders, community leaders. The country thirsts for them.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator, diplomat and governor

The views expressed are personal