Thought on leadership in times of COVID-19

Burden of leadership: Dammed if you do it and Condemned if you dont.

Leaders needs to make those hard decisions and not care for those pundits who think the decision should be different without understanding the complete ramifications.

In the case of Corona Virus, we have a situations that if you did not do a lockdown, we would have crores die certainly and with lockdown you will million suffer due to a frail economy. You have to choose between sure death vs long suffering. I do not think I would want to be in the same place as Modi or any other world leader right now.

Thankful that this is something above my pay-grade and I do not have to make this moral dilemma.

So what can we do personally during this time..

On the whole, I think the leaders in India are all acting responsibly and more maturely that I had expected. This is not time for politicking. This is time for action and doing the best they can. No one is perfect, no decision is perfect, no outcome is perfect. We will have deaths and sufferings... it is only about reducing it best we can. Let us support them for once and stop comparing them. I am sure after the event, we will go back to our old ways and each one will blame other.. but this is not the time.

Trump declared himself as a war president... and while India does not have this as a concept, all our leaders are war leaders right now. We have to believe they have the best intentions.. and go with them. After we get out of this mess, we can decide, if we had the done the right job at electing them in the first place and if they should continue....

Democracy does not mean everyone will do what they want. Democracy means we elect leaders and follow them. We may not have voted for them but the majority did. We can have opinions and also express them freely. But when it comes to action we must follow the leaders. They have enormous burdens and it is not something which is easy to carry.

P.S. When I talk of leaders I talk of PM and CMs, State and Central minister, IAS officers and local havaldars, CEOs and delivery boys, Doctors and Ward boys. Everyone who is serving other is a leader right now.

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