So Mr. Barack Hussein Obama has made it into history. Euphoria seems the prevalent mood, not just in the US, but also all over the world.

Let me confess, I was not very hyped about having Obama as the ‘leader of the Western world’, as they term it. At first, I was afraid that I too was a racist – despite the fact that the colour of my skin is nearer the shade of Mr. Obama’s than Mr. McCain’s!

After much agonising, I realised, it was jealousy that was my motivation. Not personal jealousy of Mr. Obama – more the jealousy of an Indian for an American. As we ‘pride’ ourselves as being the ‘largest’ democracy in the world, we see before us, evidence of what real democracy means.

Better minds than mine will analyse what the strategic and economic implications will be for India. Let me try to define what it means to an individual Indian.

Two things struck me this morning as I watched the victory speech by Obama and the concession by McCain.

One was the essential decency of the man that is John McCain, a trait of his I remembered from his nomination bid of 2000. The other was the tears streaming unheeded from the eyes of Rev. Jesse Jackson, as he listened to Obama’s tribute to America.

The first moved me because McCain is the representative of the American spirit, which moved the world in the sixties. I will not delve into the rights and wrongs of the American misadventure in Vietnam – I just remember the fulfilment of the promise that USA represents to the rest of the world. Forget for a moment the mud and slime of his presidential campaign and we can see a decent, honourable man striving to keep his values in a changing world. He and his values may be inconsistent with the present world, but that cannot detract from his personal integrity. We saw the end of an era, a change of guard.

The second picture was that of Jesse Jackson. He is a link to the past that gave Obama the opportunity to be what he has now become. Again, it is a picture of the sixties; the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr. Jackson must have had a picture of his friend on the great march to Washington and the immortal speech that gave voice to the aspirations of millions of Americans. ‘I have a dream’ – the words still give me goose pimples. Jackson is also the representative of the end of an era. A forgetting of bitterness, a passing on from the past…

Why did I remember that? Because today, Martin Luther King’s dream needs fulfilment, not in the USA – but in India. Substitute some of the nouns and place names and the speech could have been made for the current situation we see in India. An India fractured along religious, linguistic, casteist and a plethora of other lines.

We may blame our politicians for their ‘vote-bank’ politics for the divisions, and we would be right. At the same time, we too are to blame – because we let a few hold on to the reins of government, without challenging their right to do so without question.
That is why I am jealous – that we did not have the social awareness, or political commitment as citizens to produce an Obama.

Let us hope that the historic step that the US polity took this year, this day, will inspire at least the younger generation to dream their dreams and perhaps, find our own Obama.