India is a vast country, vast in area, population, and cultural and lingual diversity. Probably the only thing that keeps us together is that we are all Indians. But to shape and keep together this country, it has taken the work of many able statesmen.
A great percentage of our population is mostly illiterate. Thus a major segment of the people are incapable of managing more than their personal business. Until that situation changes, the country must be governed by individuals ready to think in terms of the country and he masses. We need people who can ignore the demands of one, or a few, in light of the needs of all. After all, the needs of many, outweigh the needs of the few. We need people who are statesmen in the truest sense of the world.
Our Constitution guarantees the equality of all citizens and the right to vote and also to stand for election. These rights are noble ones, and ones to be safeguarded. But still, every person who wants power and a government office cannot be elected. We cannot silently hand over the rein of power to mere politicians who will work to better a small section of the populace; while the rest of society silently crumbles. Such people will only divert resources to one place while the needs of others are ignored. They are like the man-made canals which bring water to the fields to cultivate certain crops, risking the death of the flora of the rest of land. But what we direly need are the rivers that wash all the land and bring equal life to rose bushes, to fruit trees and to weeds.
We need statesmen, people who will not see if a person belongs to a scheduled caste or not; who will not care if a person supports communism or does not; but will make sure that every last man gets his bread and water and that they work justly for it. We need people who are morally and intellectually strong. People who will rob themselves and give to the poor if need be, but who will never do things the other way. We need people who line the coffers of the nation, but not their own.
We need statesmen, men for others, not politicians. A politician would strive to uplift himself and the particular cause he supports. But statesmen strive to uplift all causes, as long as they are just and true. We need statesmen today to lift India from it’s turmoil both political and social.