By Banlam K Lyngdoh
“Stupid, desperate followers create half-assed, dangerous leaders”
– Tarun Tejpal (The Alchemy of Desire)
Let’s hit the bull’s eye. In India the electorate in particular and the citizens at large are to be content with selfish men whom we call leaders, men who unscrupulously misuse public wealth and property and sanctimoniously abuse representative power and people’s trust. In our vast democracy, statesmen are a rare breed and they appear in the scene once in a generation. All other noblemen who aspire to humbly serve the nation and who by hook or by crook see to it that their dream come true, sooner or later turn and furnish public service into a luxurious refuge for themselves and their lucky kith and kin. But let’s not be too harsh on them. The one and only antecedent to the emergence of such corrupt leaders lies with us the great mass of mother India. It is our stupidity, our greed, our stubbornness, our susceptibility to flattery and, sometimes, our desperateness that create such a conducive ambience for them to multiply and rampantly flourish. It seems our hard-won freedom has not improved even a bit over the years beyond the base and crass political connotation of the term. India is still an unliberated nation as far as mass awareness of primary nation-building devices and potential are concerned.
Judging from the current scenario, it apparently is a far cry to expect people to conquer ignorance, communalism, superstitions, religious bigotry and other dissecting elements as long as the masses themselves elect leaders, or are instigated to do so, on the basis of these very dividing and fragmenting vices. We are simply not free in the mind and in the spirit. We are governed and dictated by fear of losing our lives, fear of losing our middle-class sense of mock freedom or our lower-class sense of status quo. Because fear rides on our back we only willingly bite the dust and follow the chalta hai attitude only to pine among ourselves at the abysmal performance of our politicians and the pathetic state they have brought the country to.
Rulers, colonial or native, totalitarian or popularly elected, always will take advantage and misuse their throne or chair as long as they feel sure that the ruled are an unquestioning lot, a bunch of go-easy crowd who could be swayed and bulldozed at any given time. Hackneyed as the statement ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is, it holds true for all time and for all kinds of people in all ages. The will to power is the most basic human instinct. The greater man in might and brunt will only be instinctively led to manipulate, twist and force his way to enrich himself in terms of more power and in the means to garner and preserve that power. And the one easy highway for his ruthless stride towards his goal is the slave-morality of the people who idolize, choose and indulge him.
So, it goes without saying that we do not have a moral right to condemn the oppressor because in oppressing others he only succumbs to that part of his nature that stimulates him to be on top. But ultra-modern society has all the time and the right to condemn itself for not having been able to check or curb this nature in the people who we choose to lead us in the political sphere. Yes, we need to upbraid and mercilessly berate our complacent selves, we the so-called free individuals, who are no longer intimidated by the sceptre or the gallows but still strongly shackled by the abstract entity of fear. As much as we are left speechless by the beauty and force of the mighty stream in the countryside and are afraid of its seasonal invading rage, we marvel more at the collective primitive effort and success of simple farmers and illiterate millers who by sheer unity and dedication, fuelled by the indomitable will to bend and crack, tame the stream and derive resources from it. Yes, power is never as beautiful and sublime as when it is channelized for the cause of greater good. And the power to mould and streamline that power, in the days of popular governance, lies in the collective wish and sincere effort of the populace that create leaders. Our leaders can be a source of our agreeable civic life simply because they belong to us in the sense that the wild river belongs to the simple villagers. Voltaire wrote “Vox populi, vox dei”. His words inspired the French to die for liberty and for succeeding generations in France to uphold this ideal. It freed the people from fear and they overthrew the long entrenched tradition of oppression and injustice.
In the days of kings and emperors, people had no say. In the hands of a righteous ruler the subjects enjoyed welfare and the king’s compassion, but in the whip of a cruel despot, they led a miserable life characterized by hopelessness and dread. History that records and decides the verdict on eras, regimes and people, does so from the perspective of the rulers and the court. History never puts either the praise or the blame on the subjects because they were never the seat or focus of power. In light of what has been mentioned earlier, because of fear and perpetual lack of a way out on the part of the subjects, despots and tyrants far outnumbered humane and benevolent rulers. And so came a period where loss of freedom led to a sub-human kind of existence for millions of souls in the world who could resort only to silent cursing of their fate and pray for doomsday to come.
People and races whose lives had been squeezed out by the hands of oppressive rulers and governments realized that if they continued only to pine at their fate, a time could come where the concept of justice would no longer be recognized and the idea of freedom lost. Separately enthused and inspired by the unseen pen of the intelligentsia, in their own way, with available resources, they sacrificed what could not be lost anymore (their lives) to raise the banner of freedom, the only emblem that could usher equality and ascertain equal opportunities and rights in all spheres of life. They chose to be scared no longer, to be slaves no more; they chose to stand with their head held high, brimming with confidence and manly resolve not to let those who ruled them play with them just because they were poor and desperate.
What did the intellectuals contemplating in the bower write about that common people should be so ignited to risk their lives to ensure the coming of the reign of freedom? Burning the midnight oil and dipping the feather indefatigably into the realm of the spirit, they brought out the meaning, purpose and value of life, calling out to the masses that life can be at its best and most beautiful only in the freedom of the spirit. Shelley’s Prometheus was unbound to sweep away all demagogues. Rousseau wrote “Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.” The poor, the destitute, the oppressed, the suppressed were shaken up from the spell of slave-morality and called to fight for the essence of their being – freedom of the spirit.
And this is the essence of democracy. Democracy bestows all power in the people. It says that the government belongs to the people, a body to manage for the convenience and interest of the people and to be managed, checked and scrutinised also by the people. This statement has been given and understood in the light of the admittance and assumption that the people can do this much for themselves because they are free in the spirit. To reiterate, democracy works on the principle that people are fit to govern themselves for the very reason that they are free in the spirit. At the cost of blood we did away with other forms of governments because they, by virtue of their principles, necessarily make those in the helm of governance alien to this lofty concept. All autocrats, tyrants, and dictators, at the end of the day, turned out to be victims of insecurity and fear. They were/are simply not free and therefore, the worst kinds of rulers.
At the cost of oversimplification, democracy empowers the masses to decide their own destiny. This empowerment, in a natural way of balancing itself, takes away one prerogative from the mass – self-ruling. We cannot put the blame on those whom we delegate our powers in case such workers don’t deliver the goods. Let’s face it, our political leaders are our servants, the fact that both parties seem to ignore and forget until they come begging to be employed again. Good and responsible masters neither blame nor amuse their servants. Practical masters reprimand their servants and if the latter become incorrigible the only solution is to sack them and seek new faces. Alas, that’s not the picture in our country. We are too good and credulous that every time these contract workers knock at our doors, we feel so privileged and honoured. It touches our pristine hearts to see how they identify with us and our problems, how they readily accept any lowly seat that we can offer, they, who sit in ornate and cushioned chairs, and how they, the wheel-turners of the nation or the state, can spare their precious time to grieve with us in times of loss and death giving us the purest of condolences. After so much noble foolhardiness on our part we lament over the state of our penury by pointing a finger at them and display more beatitude by never asking them to return what they have misused of our wealth and property and letting them to run for public office again.
It is only axiomatic to conclude that democracy makes leaders out of men and men out of leaders. No one is a better leader than that who leads oneself. Leading oneself is what Gandhi talked of, and our great poet, Rabindranath Tagore, prayed to God to bless his countrymen with the ability to realize that real freedom is not a gift but a struggle. Tagore also said that political freedom will remain a passive entity if people do not strive for self-motivation from time to time. We the people are the makers of our destiny and we can do it best by shovelling out from our mind fear and superstition, taking an uncompromising stand in our fight for our rights and in fulfilling our obligations. The spirit is free when our mind is pure, when we don’t entertain impediments and hurdles, verbal or functional, on our way to reach the truth in us. As Nehru said, let’s straighten our backs so that no one should dare ride us. We are not sheep that others should drive us either to the pasture or the slaughterhouse. We the people are the masters of our enterprise. Masters don’t follow; they lead.