Rajiv Gandhi School of Government: a retro blog post on a letter that I wrote to Mrs Sonia Gandhi in 1991

I dusted up my old papers and found this letter that I wrote in 1991. The ideas expressed remain, and I after all these years I find it even more relevant for India to take this up. (Mrs Gandhi did respond with a letter that said that the focus of the Foundation at that point of time was on Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies and had enclosed some information about the Institute. I did not follow up on that to press further)

Sivasubramanian M

1291 A, P.K.M.Road
Theni 626531, T.Nadu
Phone: 045546-2237
(address and phone as on 1991)

(Sent on 14 October, 1991)

[Mrs Sonia Gandhi]
The Chairperson
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation
New Delhi, India

Dear Madam

I am a 27 year old businessman thinking more and more about India and its problems.

I am writing to outline a specific proposal to solve one of the most fundamental problems India has been living with

This may please be treated as a proposal submitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

I propose that a school be built to raise a new generation of politicians, committed and capable.

The Late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi dreamed of a new India which is taking a lot of time to build, for want of qualified and capable men and omen devoted to such a mission.

India does have men and women who would gladly commit themselves to build a new India Some wouldn't enter public life waiting for reforms in the Indian politics, reforms that can only happen after their entry into public life. Yet others need to be discovered and brought into politics.

What needs to be done is to build a school that would discover such men and women and raise them as capable and committed politicians.

Please allow me to call this school as "Rajiv Gandhi School of Government"

It should be a school that would surpass in its standards renowned schools such as the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Woodroow Wilson School of Government in Princeton and the London School of Economics.

We do have the Delhi School of Economics and the Administrative Staff College of India, but those institutions have contributed more to the industry and bureaucracy than to representative government. Same could be said of the Kennedy School or Wilson School as not all their graduates go to Parliament.

Rajiv Gandhi School of Government may be conceived as a school that would contribute mostly to the representative government by having as its primary object, enabling worthy mean and women thoroughly prepare for careers in politics.

The school should find intelligent men and women who show signs of sincerity and commitment to public life and build them up as politicians of competence and high ethical standards.

The school should not be a stereotype school teaching political theory and quantitative techniques., but should emphasize more on implementing a deep sense of commitment and ethics in the minds of the students. The school should also tech them skills that even Harvard takes for granted that the students already possess: the fundamental and most essential skills that one starts learning from childhood butt never seems to master - reading, writing and speaking skills, not to mention goo behavior and etiquette.

If I may dream a little, I would visualize Rajiv Gandhi School of Government located at a place of climate congenial for education. The school would be copiously funded and uncompromisingly managed. It would have plenty of resources and have in its premises the most eminent academicians and politicians.

The school should be of unsurpassed standards, standards that are never for once compromised for any reason. It should have a small class with faculty drawn from the best schools in India and abroad. The school may frequently or regularly invite Past Presidents and Past Prime Ministers of various countries to spend a day or two with the students.

The primary purpose of the school should be to build better men and women to build a better nation of India. In addition the school can do research on topics such as alternative forms of government, electoral reforms an bureaucratic reforms. It could also explore was of solving specific problems the country is facing in international relations.

The school could also offer intense training for newly elected Members of Parliament. Though the Government of India may not be able to make it mandatory for a person seeking elections to the parliament to be qualified, the government could be persuaded to make it obligatory for newly elected Members of Parliament to undergo the necessary orientation program that the school could offer.

It may take a few more years for our nation to prescribe minimum qualifications or those who are seeking elections to parliament, but if we have enough men, fit and proper, bright and qualified, the political parties would rather opt for them in the elections to come. It would eventually become a convention, though not mandatory that qualified men and women go to parliament.

I appeal to you, madam, as Chairperson of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, to consider founding this school.

Should you require me to elaborate on this proposal, I would so so eagerly.

Very Sincerely,
Sivasubramanian M.
Madras

14 October 1991.

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