INDIA: Union Council of Ministers Resembles Old Age Home

NEW DELHI (DNA India), February 3, 2006: Age is a heavy price to pay for maturity, said leading English playwright Tom Stoppard. In Indian politics, however, age pays. India's Union Council of Ministers resembles an old age home. The 79-strong council has only nine members who are around 40 and twenty who are, or approaching, 50. Four ministers are around 80 and 14 are in their 70s. Those in their 60s make the largest group comprising 32 ministers. Anand Kumar, a sociologist in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, comments: "It is sad that in a country where 52 per cent of the population is below 25 and where persons above 65 comprise just seven per cent of the population, the age profile of the Cabinet is so high." He says the aged ministers would spend more time consulting doctors than people connected to their ministries. "This will send a wrong signal that the government is run by secretaries with the ministers being mere symbolic heads." He says old men in office give rise to extra-constitutional centres of power. "Take Buta Singh. His two sons accompanied him to Patna when he went there as governor. Of course, Singh said his sons were there to 'help' him." Says neurologist Ashok Pangariya, "In the context of globalisation, a young lot should run the show at the Centre. Command should be in the hands of the youth." But two young Congress MPs, Naveen Jindal and Jitin Prasada, did not speak out against the senior leadership. "I don't need to be a minister to get policies implemented. If I have ideas, I can convey them to my seniors. They can make the right choices," says Naveen Jindal. One needs experience to deserve a position, says Jitin Prasada. "We need to first learn, be with the people in our constituencies and only then shoulder bigger responsibilities.” By Rajesh Sinha