Kejriwal’s Degree Fetish: Degrees don’t make a Leader!

Kejriwal’s Degree Fetish: Degrees don’t make a Leader!

What is common between Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Harry Truman, Ray Kroc (founder of McDonald’s), and Walt Disney?

They barely, if at all, completed their High School and never went to college!  Yet, they will be counted in human history as some of the greatest leaders ever!

No degrees and no formal education.  Yet, these leaders – all world beaters – were self taught.  Abraham Lincoln, for example, worked as postmaster, clerk and store-keeper until he found the Blackstone’s “Commentaries” on law.  And he self taught himself to be one of the successful lawyers and orators.  His “Gettysburg address” will always rank as one of the greatest oratory exposition ever!

Leaders are not made in classrooms.  They are made of different stuff.  Those who have vision, have the will to work hard, and the forebearance to deal with tough and easy situations alike.  And above all, those who can think of things that no one else can, trust their vision and make them happen.  For a person with sagacity and pacifism of Lincoln to jump into Civil War to keep the Union intact could never have been an easy task.  Yet, his humanity which appealed to eliminate slavery and his vision to see a United States, made him victorious against all odds.

How many people have won wars in human history and yet, chosen to give the power to people?  Hardly any.  Yet, George Washington had that vision and humility.

This is stuff that is not taught in Harvard or the IIT.  Either you have it or you don’t.

Kejriwal’s Fetish with Degrees

Despite overwhelming evidence that shows people with no college degrees have gone on to become great leaders and that college education has no link to leadership achievements, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is obsessed with PM Modi’s degree!  Apparently, it is a matter of “grave concern” for this IIT educated activist who has done nothing more than “alleging his way to the top”!  Prior to his elections, Kejriwal was shouting hoarse on how he had created the 370+ page document on the then Delhi CM Shiela Dixit’s corruption scandals.  Since he became the CM, till date there has been no action.

The worst example of his shameless and nonsensical hyperbole was the calculations for CCTV cameras in Delhi.  Ostensibly, his plan would have made all Delhi-ites safe.  And his plan was to install 10 lakh cameras with a budget of Rs 200 crores.  How did he come to that calculation?  Let us hear it from him.

Simple right?  10,00,000 multiplied by 2000 = Rs 200 crores.  If you have ever taken a picture on a simple camera of your Mobile phone, you would realize you need something called “storage” in your camera.  Right?  Either inbuilt or a MicroSD card.   Well, that is the basic minimum in addition to a CCTV camera.  You need to factor in Installation, Network Hardware, Server, Internet Bandwidth, Control room set up etc.  Do you have any idea how much just the storage and bandwidth would be required for 10 lakh cameras?  Let us do some basic calculations.

Bandwidth and storage Requirements for Kejriwals 10 lakh Cameras
Bandwidth and storage Requirements for Kejriwals 10 lakh Cameras

How much does 100 Petabyte cost?  Roughly $76,000.  So, for 181 Petabytes, we are talking of roughly $140,000.  And that’s One Week of Storage!  I haven’t factored in the bandwidth cost yet.

So do you see what kind of “kool aid” Delhi-ites were drinking from Kejriwal?   And, did I mention that he is an engineer from the venerable IIT?  If that is what his education gave him, isn’t Lincoln with self taught law better?

Now, let us look at the man who has irked Kejriwal with his “lack of degree” so much that he feels the countrymen would like to know the education level of the PM.  His pet peeve?  That PM’s BA degree is not in order, so how could he have an MA?  Thank God, Lincoln didn’t have to live in the ignominious world of Kejriwals or he could have never practiced law!   When we should be opening up education so that anyone – if he or she basis self learned knowledge – can take a higher degree through sheer hard work, we have a regressive “leader” of India’s capital who is stuck in the morass of degree hierarchies!

More than anything else – does it really… freaking matter if Modi has a BA or MA?  Ask yourself.  Wouldn’t you choose Lincoln or a Modi over Kejriwal anyday?  Well, at least the Indian public is saying so as well.

Modi versus Other Politicians
Modi versus Other Politicians

Narendra Modi – the Self Taught Leader

When Modi joined the RSS, he came from very minimal means.  Family was poor.  Mother used to clean people’s houses, and he used to go around selling tea at the railway platform.  From there, the young kid worked hard and took up one project after another to create a reputation of a person who could handle anything.

When he was picked up by the BJP leadership to be the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had absolutely no administrative experience.  Within 3 months, the state faced one of the worst riots in history after a planned train burning by a Muslim mob.  The insensitive and inflammatory statements by activists like Teesta Setalvad created a volatile situation which resulted in thousands of deaths.  Yet, within 24 hours, the Army was called in and action was taken.  In what was used as a tool to defame and demonize Narendra Modi, people of both the communities died and till date – despite machinations by political enemies even to the detriment of Indian national interest – nothing was ever proven.

It has now been exposed how the the Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Ahmed Patel tried their best to “nail Modi” by sanitizing terrorists like Ishrat Jahan and playing along with LeT and ISI.

All those years when he was targeted exclusively and berated at every juncture and event, he still maintained his cool and focused on the success of Gujarat.  Despite the allegations of how minorities have suffered under Modi, the truth can be discerned from one interesting example.  Tata Nano was planning to construct a plant in Bengal.  The Chief Minister, Mamta Bannerjee cited the plight of poor and their lands.  A typical communist/socialist cry.  Soon the cadres were agitating and the plant had to close down.  Modi saw an opportunity and brought the Tata Nano plant to Gujarat.  The village near which the plant came up was a Muslim majority village.  The prices of land in that village rose 25 times in mere 5 years!  Ironically, the Muslims and poor in the “Secular” coddling state were still starving, while their brethren in “Communal” Gujarat were rich men and women!

The Gujarat government will give Rs 350 crore to a Muslim-dominated village near Sanand in Ahmedabad district where land prices have appreciated 25 times in the past five years.  Muslims comprise about half the population here. After Sanand, Khoraj, Bol and other surrounding villages the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation has initiated the process of acquiring 350 hectares of land in this village which is home to about 250 families.
Sharad Parikh, general manager (land) GIDC said the process of acquisition will start on Wednesday at the rate of around Rs 1 crore/hectare — up from Rs 4 to 5 lakh/per hectare when the Nano project shifted here in late 2008.

When Narendra Modi was to run for the PM elections, many simply laughed and made fun of him.  Specially folks like Mani Shankar Aiyer, who famously offered him a place in Congress convention to “sell chai”.  Modi took that “insult” and turned it around to launch one of the most successful campaigns in political history called “Chai pe Charcha”.

Modi won with an unprecedented mandate of 282 seats just for BJP.

Since his ascendancy to the PM post, he has constantly worked 18-20 hours a day without a holiday and with a travel schedule that leaves him to catch his sleep in the plane itself.  There have been many achievements by PM Modi in the last 2 years.  And, as India becomes the fastest growing economy in the world – an oasis of sorts in a global growth drought – PM Narendra Modi’s efforts have borne fruit.

Any which way one looks at PM Modi’s life story, one finds it to be extremely inspiring.  For, if a poor man from a lower caste family can rise to the level of India’s PM through dint of sheer hard work sans any formal education, then anyone in India has a chance to become the top leader.  Just this one inspirational aspect of PM Modi’s life gives a common man enough to dream and work towards a great future!  And frankly that is enough for PM Modi to be respected and looked upto.  Degree or no degree.

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