It only means that people are cowards and do not want to take hard decisions for themselves.
HYDERABAD, INDIA: This is in response to Aakar Patel’s article “India’s need for a decisive leader” (December 15). I would like to point out that Pakistan had a string of decisive leaders in Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf. It was only under an indecisive leader like Asif Ali Zardari that Pakistan saw a smooth, democratic transition of government. It was the faceless Deng Xiaoping under whom China rose, and not under a decisive leader like Mao Zedong. Russia is still to get out of Joseph Stalin’s shadow and Germany out of Adolf Hitler’s. The last decisive leader the US had was Abraham Lincoln. It was under the faceless English that the common Indian progressed more than he did under Ashoka or Akbar.
It is a pity if a country wants decisive leaders. It only means that people are cowards and do not want to take hard decisions for themselves.
C Nandkishore
Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2013.
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