Department of Political  Science, Panjab University, organised a two day  UGC-SAP National Conference on Study of Political Leadership in India and Beyond on May 27-28, 2013 at ICSSR North Western regional centre, PU, Chandigarh.

Conference day one Monday 27^th may 2013

Inaugural session

 The inaugural session of this conference was addressed by Prof. Bhupinder Brar. The convener of the conference Prof. Ashutosh Kumar introduced the audience with the theme of the conference as well as the importance of leadership in Indian politics at national as well as regional level. He said that the newly exalted position of the states and state level parties in the Indian polity has brought new focus on the considerable power and influence wielded by state level political leadership. He also said that the aim of the conference is to examine challenges posed to successful leadership.

Prof. Subrata K. Mitra from Heidelberg University gave the keynote address. He threw light on the aim of workshop i.e. is to test existing models of leadership and to suggest a new model that could claim contextual validity.   He dwelled on some of the issues like what is leadership and what does this consist of? How might one become a leader? Is it culture and context specific or is it possible to draw some cross-cultural generalisations? He guided the researchers by illustrating these questions with his own past research. Prof. P.S. Jaswal was guest of honour at the occasion. While addressing the audiences he pointed out the crisis of leadership in contemporary time. Renowned scholars from various parts of country expressed their views on leadership.

The first session of the conference was chaired by eminent professor Philip Oldenburg from University of California.First speaker of the conference was Prof. Bidyut Chakrabarty , who spoke on regional leadership in India in the era of coalition. He said that the growing importance of regional leadership allowed the process of “decentring the centre”. So, in the conceptual understanding of the centre, region is understood not in its narrow geographical sense, but as ‘critical’ to issues pertaining to national politics. Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)Sanjay Kumar presented his paper on “Does Leadership Matter in Indian Politics?” He said the whole debate about leadership in the present day politics in India is sadly centred on two names Rahul Gandhi the leader of the Congress party and Narendra Modi, the Gujarat Chief Minister and leader of BJP. It is widely believed, at least within the party or within large section of leadership within the respective party that these two leaders are charismatic.While there is undue focus on these two leaders, sadly the real story about changing nature of leadership gets lost. Along with trend of increasing political importance of regional parties, there is also a story of increasing importance of regional leaders and declining importance of national leaders. Dr. Ajay Mehra under the title “Political leadership and political institution: a case of cabinet government in India” have focused on Nehruvian leadership, his personality cult and the way he worked with other leaders in three phases. These three phases shown the journey of Nehruvian leadership from a strong independent leader to a compromising leader

              Thesecond session of the conference was chaired by Prof. Bidyut Chakrabarty. Chanchal Kumar Sharma started with his paper titled “When Personality Meets the Operating Environment” focused on leadership Styles of Prime ministers Nehru, Indira and Rajiv in India.The issue of Leadership and Federal Discourse in India was discussed by Dr. Ajay Kumar Singh from Centre for Federal Studies Jamia Hamdard University. The author gave an analysis of Indian federalism with emerging patterns of leadership. He emphasized the fact that with growing assertation of regional leaders, union is deconcentrating its competence largely in favour of states. Simultaneous ‘regional’ extends unquestionable support to union in safeguarding the sovereignty and integrity of Indian nationalism.

                The third session was chaired by Prof. Paramjit Singh Judge. The first paper of the session was presented by Prof. Rajiv Lochan, Department of History, Panjab University, Chandigarh. The paper highlighted the ways in which Sardar Partap Singh Kairon after co-opting the diverse voices led the state of Punjab from devastation during partition into the process of development by properly harnessing the energies of the state. Rekha Saxena,Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi in her paper titled“From Oligarchy to Stratarchy : A Case Study of Congress Chief Minister Amarinder Singh of Punjab.The paper focussed on the emergence of an autonomous state congress leadership in Punjab under chief minister Amarinder Singh and his policy vis a vis inter- state disputes relating to Ravi- Sutlej and Beas.

A paper on the leadership traits of Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab was presented in the conference by Dr. Kanwalpreet, from DAV College, sector 10, Chandigarh. Through this paper she emphasized on few questions about leadership of Sardar Sukhbir Singh Badal. How has he managed to retain the traditional vote-bank of the Party while expanding its horizons? How has he balanced the different factions within the Party? How does he identify people’s strength and their weaknesses and use them to his advantage?

                The last session of the conference was chaired by Prof. Ajay Mehra.  Surinder Singh through his paper titled “Political Leadership of New Avatars: Babas/Gurus/Sants” explored the diversity of social sites and domains in which babas of deras are participating, particularly beyond their sectarian realm. The paper also put a question to the widely held view that Dalits in Punjab are politically asserting through Deras. It reveals the Dalit assertion through these babas or deras have not been able to effect a broad social and political structural transformation at the state level. Professor Parmjit Singh judge of GNDU presented the paper “Making sense of leadership style: A case of Punjab” in this paper he focused on the diverse dimension of political leadership within the political system. Talking about the leadership styles in Punjab he revealed that during first half of twentieth century there was struggle between middle classes and big land owners. However, after 1966 the balance shifted towards Jat dominance. The speaker raised an important question that why major political tendency in Punjab comes down to the feudal structure and practices.

Day one of the conference was a perfect beginning which promised to be boon for the researchers across the region. The enthusiastic presentations by the doyens of research definitely provided a thrust to the hitherto underexplored area of leadership research in India.