Vijay Vikram

I just spent the last two hours listening to a recording of Arun Shourie’s interaction with Harvard students instead of reading about Karl Mannheim’s views on Conservatism. It was worth listening to the entire thing even with the moderator’s unsettling diction. The most stimulating part of the discussion came right at the end when a member of the audience interrupted the moderator’s closing statement and asked –

“If I may just ask one very short question that would probably interest everybody? How does one join a political party in India? If I wanted to join the BJP today, what do I have to do? Because I don’t want to join my mohalla-level engagement given the skill set I bring to the table. How do I pitch in?”

Shourie gave an excellent answer to assorted chuckling:

“I think, get to know individuals and wait for the chance. But I would not sacrifice a good professional career in the pursuit of that goal”

Shourie then proceeds to broaden the scope of the question –

“You see, the one problem for us professionals is that we tend to see politics in a very narrow fashion i.e. How to enter a political party for the purposes of electoral politics. But why not ask a second question: how to participate in Indian public life – which is much larger than electoral politics and certainly much larger than the lives of these political parties and gangs. Take up an issue. Specialise in it. Education for example. We would have entered public life and we would be seen as effective on that point. Much better than trying to get into a political party.”

I do think this exposition was quite significant. More so than Shourie’s mild ticking-off of M.F. Hussain for his erotic treatment of the Sita-Hanuman relationship

The recording of the interaction at Harvard’s Kennedy School in its entirety is available here. It is highly reccomended.