The negative meaning of the word 'neta' in India today is due to
Directions: Read the passage and answer the following questions.
Passage I
Mahatma Gandhi exercised leadership through his personal example and influence rather than through power. But would his style of leadership have worked in the West? Gandhi's example, even more than those of Lincoln, de Gaulle and Hitler, reveals the extent to which leadership is bound up with culture. For a long time the word 'culture' was used mainly as a synonym for Western civilization - the secular process of human development. In England it acquired definite class associations. But in the late eighteenth century the German writer Johann Herder challenged this view, 'Nothing is more indeterminate than this word, 'he wrote, 'and nothing more deceptive than its application to all nations and periods. 'Herder attacked the comfortable assumption that the self-development of humanity had moved in a unilinear progression to flower in the European culture around him. Indeed, he attacked the European assumption of cultural superiority.
Men of all the quarters of the globe, who have perished over the ages, you have not lived solely to. manure the earth with your ashes, so .that at the end of time your prosperity should be made happy by European culture majesty of Nature. It is then necessary, he concluded, to talk of 'cultures' in the plural: the specific and variable cultures of different natures and period, and even the sub-cultures (as we call them) of different social groups within the nation In India, the equivalent of leader is the word neta. In its positive sense it is used for a person who commands respect and even &w€: and has charismatic qualities about him. Because of the misdeeds and misdemeanors of some of the political leaders in the post-Independence era, the word has also come td be used as a taunt for those who pose as leaders but are not accepted as such. In India, the test of leadership lies in personal example, inspirational image and acceptance of the leaders qualities and attributes by the followers.
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lack of bright young leaders
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the wrong actions and unacceptable behaviour of some political leaders
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general indifference of the public towards politics
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the absence of guidelines to train leaders
B
Correct answer
Explanation
The passage explicitly states that the word 'neta' has become a taunt due to the 'misdeeds and misdemeanors' of some political leaders in the post-Independence era.