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Putin to the fore

TO THE outside world, Vladimir Putin might still be some kind of an enigma. Shy in his exterior, yet firm as firm can be when it comes to dealing with the affairs of his nation — a nation that he has brought back from the brink with grit and determination, before he put it, again, shoulder-to-shoulder with its arch-enemy of yesteryear. So, when Time magazine looked around this time for the Person of the Year pick, there is little wonder that it zeroed in on the Russian leader.

A while ago, Putin had compared himself with Franklin D Roosevelt, the American president who empowered the nation with rare perseverance, lifting it from the dark alleys of the Great Depression in the 1930s and guiding it onto the road to prosperity. Rightly so. Russia's oil wealth has come to Putin's aid as he re-energised the nation that had fallen on bad days. Yet, leadership mattered.

Those who watched Putin perform would know how quietly he worked wonders with his nation; at the same time, also being careful not to rub his political rivals the wrong way. That, however, was only to start with. Putin has in later years taken on those who sought to undercut his authority, be it an oil tycoon, or somebody else; and with impressive élan. Leadership, he showed, is all about firmness.

Putin is no Ras-putin. Here's a leader who has not let his nation down. Which is why, despite his perceived dictatorial ways and sidelining of the principles of democracy to which modern Russia is wedded, popular support for him has been on the rise. Detractors might explain it a way as a consequence of the personality cult being promoted around his leadership. But is Russia, or the Communist-socialist world at large, new to such 'cults'?

As Time rightly reckons, Putin's firmness is what ensured stability for Russia past its turbulent era — stability in a country that has, as the magazine put it, “hardly seen it for a hundred years”. If Putin's firmness has a better side to it, that is evident also in the way he is not inclined to tamper with Constitutional provisions while seeking to lead the nation in a capacity other than that as President.

Putin has already served notice on America that the West cannot take him, or Russia, for granted. In recent months, he has taken several stands that irritated the West. And, he made it a point to reach out to those who felt hurt by the acts of the West. The Russian leader was at his assertive best when, a couple of months ago, he sent in an expedition to the Arctic to plant the Russian Flag there and claim control over the North Pole. In simple terms, it might mean little now; in broader terms, it means a lot. The other possible claimants were caught napping. It was that Putin grabbed an opportunity that opened up before the world with the melting of the Arctic ice — a direct, otherwise unwelcome, result of Global Warming.

Putin has given re-assurance to the world that a unipolar world, the wrong effects of which we have already witnessed in recent years, is not a constant. Likely, chosen or not, he will be Man of the Year for many more years to come.