Yes, we have democracy. But do we have leadership?

By Ravishankar Kalyanasundaram

A recent coffee conversation with my long-time friend Tan from Singapore still lingers deep in my heart. Tan is a profound person. Once the owner of a large logistics company in Singapore, he walked away from his wealth at the height of his success. Along with his wife, he renounced the trappings of business life and lived in the Kanchi Mutt, even taking names given by the Mahaswami. A Christian by birth, he immersed himself in the Vedas and epics, and today he knows more of their wisdom than many Indians. Author of several books on Hindu philosophy, Tan often leaves me thinking harder about my own land.

Every time he is in Chennai, or when I am in Singapore, we make it a point to meet. Last month, over a tumbler of filter coffee at Woodlands, he began with a blunt statement: “The world today has no leadership.”

I listened. We often use that word casually. We say Trump is a strong leader. We call CEOs leaders. We give the title to party chiefs or ministers. But what is leadership? That was the provocation Tan offered, and I could not dismiss it easily.

History reminds us of what leadership once meant. Lee Kuan Yew took Singapore — a tiny island, barren of resources, written off as a backwater — and transformed it into a first-world hub of commerce and prosperity within a generation. He was not loved at every step. His measures were stern, sometimes even harsh. But his leadership left behind a nation that not only survived but became a model the world admired.

Closer home, Jawaharlal Nehru faced his own battles. In the years after independence, when the country’s coffers were empty and politics could have easily drowned in populism, Nehru fought with his own party to insist on investing in industries, dams, and scientific institutions. It was not easy, nor was it universally popular, but it was leadership.

Opinion leaders like Rajaji shaped India in subtler but no less profound ways. His voice of reason steered governments away from excess, his advocacy for free enterprise provided balance against state overreach. One can recall other names on the global stage too: Winston Churchill, who steered Britain through the storm of war; Charles de Gaulle, who held France together after its humiliations; Nelson Mandela, whose moral leadership healed a divided South Africa. In every case, leadership was not about applause but about shaping a nation’s destiny at moments when easy choices would have been ruinous.

Today, Tan observed, there is a scarcity of such leaders — in every country and every sector. Politics has become about rhetoric, not vision. Business leadership is often about valuations and exits, not building institutions that last. Even civil society and media, once the conscience-keepers, chase headlines more than truths.

In the middle of our conversation, Tan turned to China. “Look at Deng Xiaoping,” he said. “Here was a man sidelined, humiliated, and exiled more than once during Mao’s rule. Yet when Mao died, Deng returned and did the impossible. He transformed China, and in four decades of reform — most dramatically from the 1990s to the 2010s — lifted more than 800 million people out of extreme poverty. If leadership is about outcomes, then Deng deserves more space in human history than the media ever give him.”

I raised the question that troubles many: the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989. Was it right to crush those who demanded freedom? Should the blood of youth stain the narrative of progress?

Tan grew serious. “Ravi, this was China’s war on extreme poverty. If Deng had faltered, China would not be what it is today. His was a holy war on deprivation. Sometimes history confronts a leader with choices that are cruel but necessary. Study carefully how he redeemed the lives of millions who had nothing. That is leadership.”

Then he asked me something that reached deeper still: “What was the purpose of the Mahabharata war? Everyone, even God himself, wanted justice. Justice for five princes. But at what cost? How many who died were guilty, and how many were only swept away? Was not the Lord himself a bystander, witnessing the slaughter? Leadership is about the larger good. Sometimes justice for a few is weighed against the destiny of a people.”

That thought has not left me since. Because when I look around India today, I see noise, but not leadership.

Rooms stacked with seized cash make headlines, sometimes even implicating pillars we ought to trust — yet we blame courts, not the absence of leadership. The inequity in the devolution of funds to states sparks outrage. We blame the Finance Commission, not leadership. A high court, after fourteen years of slow process, convicts the corrupt, and the Supreme Court stays the sentence. We shake our heads at judges, not at the lack of leadership.

The truth is, no matter which government is in power, our population cries for relief — relief from poverty, exploitation, and inequality. China achieved in less than four decades. We, with all our pride in democracy, are still hesitating on basic measurements: our 2021 Census was postponed and is only now slated to conclude by March 1, 2027. Our leaders debate endlessly over reservations, subsidies, and commissions, but shy away from confronting the sheer scale of inequity that keeps millions shackled.

Leadership is not about winning elections or making slogans. It is about vision and courage. Gandhi led without office. Deng led without popularity. Lee Kuan Yew led without resources. Mandela led after prison. Nehru led against the mood of his party. Each of them carried scars, but each left behind legacies that transformed their people.

India’s challenge today is not the absence of democracy, but the absence of leadership. Summits, rallies, ballots, and headlines will not deliver the change we need. Relief for millions of our citizens will come only when leaders see further than the next vote and dare to make the hard choices that history demands.

And that is the hardest truth of all: sometimes, battlefields deliver what summits cannot.