One of the issues which has been constantly popping up before The DayAfter Think Tank is: should there be no age of retirement for political leaders and  should experience alone count for the political maharajas? One angry young reader went to the extent of pointing an accusing finger at political mandarins in all national and regional parties and saying: "They are perpetuating the personality cult and the once much maligned cult of extra-constitutional authority. They are all guilty of propping up sick, old and senile leaders in the garb of a very special TINA factor, that there is no alternative to those who have been for years occupying seats of high power and prestige. Their propagandists and henchmen put them on the same pedestal as the creator of the universe. Would there have been no India, no democracy, no decency and no morality, if some of these ladies and gentlemen had not been born?"

Of course the view of the angry young reader is certainly not the view of The DayAfter Think Tank. But the fact cannot be ignored that it could be the view of a substantial section of today’s angry young generation which cannot be and should not be ignored.

Some of the top rank leaders of different political parties and different fields of life in the country were seen at the 75th birthday party of one of the tallest political leaders of the country, the former prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, fondly addressed as ‘Adhyakshaji" or "Mr. President" by scores of his admirers and well-wishers who were part of the Janata Movement which led to the ouster of the Congress and Indira Gandhi from power in the wake of the Emergency of 1975. Chandra Shekhar, who was jailed during the Emergency, emerged stronger after the prison spell and was among the leaders of the Janata Movement along with Jayaprakash Narain, Morarji Desai, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Chaudhari Charan Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Raj Narain and many others who formed the first non-Congress Government at the Centre in India. Chandra Shekhar was the party president, hence he is known as ‘Adhyakshaji". He also learnt to fondly call Atal Bihari Vajpayee his "Guruji". Later, both Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were destined to become the prime ministers of India, each with his own very special style and strong following of supporters and admirers and equally strong opponents and enemies in politics. But the main issue was, both of them, like many others, are 75 and above today. Of course they gained experience over all these years, but they were certainly getting no younger. Health has been a constant problem with some of the aging leaders in august positions despite their periodic declarations that they might be old but were fighting fit. The question is: should the age factor be dismissed altogether in keeping long-living leaders eternally in positions of political power? If our angry young people accuse them of being chair-stickers and senile pieces of humanity, who is really to blame?

There were others who feel that even though there might be a consensus on some kind of age of retirement for political leaders, one also had to assess the performance of those who were comparatively younger and lacked experience. For example, was the performance of the emerging younger chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, as good as that of septuagenarians like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani? Was the performance of those in their seventies like Dr. Karan Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, I. K. Gujral, Deve Gowda and P. V. Narasimha Rao better or worse than the present day political leaders like Mulayam Singh, Mayawati, Rajnath Singh, Mamata Bannerji, J. Jayalalithaa and Shiela Dikshit, if one just looked across the political boundaries of various parties at the political leaders of today? There was a school of thought which put forth the argument: how would the younger leaders in various political parties ever gain the experience that counts if positions of power were eternally occupied by old and aging ladies and gentlemen who are considered eternal and indispensable? Let the younger people get a chance to gain experience and prove their mettle. Have not Chandra Babu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and Pawan Kumar Chamling in Sikkim proved that a new breed of younger political leaders, too, could perform their own political and economic miracles?