734. Five Ministers

After Dharmaprakash was elected the president of the country, he appointed ministers for his government. 

However, political observers were intrigued by his not appointing ministers for five important departments.

When the media persons asked him why he had not appointed ministers for the five important departments of Finance, Health, Agriculture, Defence and External Affairs, he just said, "Will do, shortly" with a smile.

During the next few days, several people, including senior leaders belonging to his party, met Dharmaprakash and had discussions with him. 

It was said that all of them met the President on being invited by him. The party seniors who were expecting a berth in the cabinet didn't get the invitation.

After ten days, Dharmaprakash announced names for the five remaining cabinet berths. Of the five, two belonged to his party. The other three were not members of his party, but were experts in specific fields.

The first meeting of the cabinet was held, presided over by President Dharmaprakash.

After greeting the ministers, Dharmaprakash said:

"We have made several promises in our election manifesto. It is important that we fulfill those promises. But, there are three tasks which take priority over fulfilling the election promises. We have not specifically mentioned these three tasks in our election manifesto. But, if we execute these three tasks, it will amount to our fulfilling all our election promises, because these three tasks are the basic things needed by our people."

Dharmaprakash paused for a while, looked at their faces and continued.

"Access to food and good health are the two basic needs of every human being. Eradicating starvation and diseases should be the primary objective of any government. But, achieving this goal is not easy. Only through proper planning and execution of schemes could this objective be fulfilled to a reasonable extent. We should do our best to fulfill these objectives within the tenure of four years, our government has. I delayed appointing ministers for a few departments, because I wanted to select people who had the expertise to deliver the results I am looking for. I invited some people who had both expertise and experience in the fields of Agriculture and food production and providing health services, talked to them about my intention to create sustainable goals in these areas, create and execute action plans to reach the goals by the end of my four year tenure. I asked them to think and come back to me with a clear plan, within a week. Out of several people invited by me, only a few came back to me with actionable plans. After listening to their plans, I selected one expert in each of these two fields and made them ministers of Agriculture and Health. Since we can execute any plan only by creating the financial resources needed and using them prudently, I appointed an Economist as the Finance Minister."

"Sir, you mentioned three tasks. You talked about providing food and health services to the people. What is the third task?" asked a senior minister.

"It is protecting our people from any onslaught by enemy countries. We need to ensure that we don't face any threat from our enemies. This needs a two-pronged approach. One, we should create friendly relationships with all the countries of the world, including our immediate neighbours, including those who may have a hostile attitude towards us. If we have any problem with our neighbours, we should have a mechanism to have talks with them, for resolving the issues amicably. If, however, our efforts fail and we are forced to enter into a war with any neighbouring country, we should canvass the support of other countries in the world. To achieve these objectives, we should have an external affairs minister with vast knowledge and diplomatic skills. If we are forced to fight a war, we should have a strong army and a large reserve of modern weapons. We need a strong Defence Minister to create and maintain such a set up."

Dharmaprakash paused again and said, "Though we have five competent ministers to focus attention on these three areas, all of us have the responsibility to execute these three tasks. That is why, I talked about this elaborately."

Thirukkural
Section 2

Materialism

Chapter 74
Divining the Mind

Verse 734 (in Tamil):
uRu pasiyum ovAp piNiyum seRu pagaiyum
sErAdhu iyalvadhu nAdu.

Meaning:

A country should be free from acute hunger, debilitating diseases and warring foes.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'aindhu amaichchargaL' by the same author.) 

Verse 735 (Soon)
Verse 733