The above has contemporary relevance. It gives a clue as to what needs to be done to tackle existing and emergent global threats. It tells us that there are no quick fix solutions and that a successful response will depend on the effectiveness with which technology is harnessed to physical reconstruction and attitudinal change. It also underlines the importance of experienced leadership and individual’s capability to walk the tight rope between ‘competitive populism’ and ‘public interest’.

The big question to my mind is who will wield the levers of key ministerial portfolios in the new government. Will it be individuals of competence and integrity or others. If it is the former, then irrespective of the party configuration of the new Parliament, we can be optimistic.

I say that because history is replete with examples of people who have single handedly overcome systemic blocks to shift the needle of change. Barack Obama is the most extraordinary recent testament of this fact but our own PM also offers a good example. His successful fight to secure the civil nuclear 123 agreement was in the teeth of considerable opposition. Less dramatic and certainly more subtle, we also have the example of how officials in the Company Law Board and people like Deepak Parekh, Tarun Das and Kiran Karnik pulled Satyam back from the brink of bankruptcy and saved not just a company but also 50,000 jobs. The point is that when ‘good’ people take the bite between their teeth they can effect disproportionately positive change. Japan lost a decade of economic growth and social development in the 1970s, because of misplaced policies and shortsighted governance. It would be sad if years hence a similar verdict were passed about India — that as a result of fractured mandates and opportunistic leadership the country failed to smother the burning fuse of identified and emergent threats.

... contd.