Follow-up on M.S.Swaminathan for the post of President

Well, since my last post on this subject, MS has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha, which perhaps renders him not easy for the big chair post. His quest to make the next green (gene) revolution seems to have been recognized suitable for the upper house to listen to. His earlier avataras have been blogged too, check them out here.

I have been informed by friends that there is an ongoing debate on who will be the next President (apart from the fringe student elements who demand Kalam for a second term) and all kinds of names are being proposed. I still think to de-colonize the Presidential post, Narayanamoorthy is a good choice (my earlier post). It is a limitation to get one technocrat following another. But, it is also a reflection of times and changing trends in this country. Scientific community is no longer the object of reverence and everyone knows that they are at the mercy of the corporate houses and the one who can create a large corporate like Narayamoorthy is immensely more popular than the scientist.

Yes, it would mean more IT projects across the country, perhaps more villages being declared as 'info-villages', more ICT initiatives, more and more of IT companies, parks, SEZs with the mascot president called in to inaugurate and provide intelligent sound bytes. These will happen any way. But, more importantly, it would mean getting the Rashtrapati Bhawan put to some intelligent use, a President who can say things independently (as much permitted by the governments) and maybe make impromptu speeches. Just like Kalam inspired (and continues to) many students through his stories, lectures, interactions, etc., Narayanamoorthy too may inspire many enterprising youth to 'dream big' - a favourite line of Kalam. The ordinary start up in any business can relate to the President (and vice versa) rather than the earlier examples of doddering old tamed political-bureaucratic-academic nexus which ensured that the Presidential chair remained within their clan. Kalam's biggest achievement was that he broke this nexus (though to be fair, his immediate predecessor R. K. Narayanan had broken quite some rules himself despite being an ex-bureaucrat) and all that it connotes and holds as sacred, like the dressing, the protocols, the dos and don'ts of the Presidential post that hasn't changed since the Viceroy days, though even the British would have forgotten them. The variety of Rashtrapathi Bhavan website is an indication of the same.

Imagine hundreds of rooms, lying waste in the capital city, maintained by tax payers money, be put to some use, maybe a periodic exhibition, some annual carnival of students, even corporate training programmes...the kind of functional use that the Rashtrapati Bhavan can serve. This can only happen if we have at least two generations of Presidents from outside the political-bureaucratic-academic nexus. They will wipe out the Colonial idea of the President and make the post more Indian. For this one reason alone I pitch for Narayanamoorthy.

But, it will also bring in another ill dressed person as the President. Kalam with his hair-do is by far the most freak President, but, Narayanamoorthy with his never at ease kind of dressing and thick glasses would perhaps replace Narasima Rao as the grim faced favourite for cartoonists across India.