Monday, April 6, 2015

In Defence of the Pursuit of Power

It is important to remind our self that the only driving force for a political leader is quest for power. There are no other higher ideals or purposes. This is the fundamental truth about leaders in any forms of government, whether it is a democracy, dictatorship or an authoritarian rule. However, there is a subtle but an important difference between a democracy and other forms of government. In a democracy it is the anonymous “unknown” citizens of the country who elect the political leaders while in other forms of government it is the select few “known” citizens. Therefore, a political leader in a democracy in order to acquire and retain power is compelled to cater to the needs of the public at large while in other forms of government a political leader only needs to cater to a select few, perhaps at the expense of large section of the society. An important implication of this is that a political leader in a democracy will have to be a relentless campaigner to woo the public to elect him to power. His foreign policy, socio-economic policy and national security policy will by and large be shaped by the demands of the public that will elect and re-elect him to power. If the campaign ends then so will the political life. The campaign must go on. Because it is this relentless campaign that connects the leader to the masses, it is this campaign that disciplines the leader to work in the interest of the public.

In a recent article Mr. P Chidambaram, a veteran Congress leader, candidly and critically mocked, that the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, unlike the prime ministers in the past, is always in “campaign mode”. Well there is an important lesson for the Congress party to be learnt here – to be relevant it will have to campaign.  In 2004 and 2009, relentless campaigning by the Congress party brought them to power and in 2014 the lack of it resulted in the worst ever defeat for the Congress party – it could not even muster enough seats to claim the leadership of the opposition. The lacklustre campaign in the recently concluded Delhi assembly elections is the single most important reason for the complete wipe out of the Congress party where 62 of its candidates lost their deposits. Had the Congress party lost due to lack of performance it would have been understandable but the truth is that it actually performed. In 1998 the Delhi infrastructure was crumbling, the economy was stagnant, life in general was old and sluggish but in 2013 there was a world-class metro, flyovers, local economy booming, life in general vibrant and young. For some inexplicable reason the Congress party did not feel a need to communicate this to the public.

When did the Congress party stop campaigning? I believe it happened with the anointment of Mr. Rahul Gandhi as the Vice President of the Congress Party on January 19th, 2013. Rahul Gandhi’s summary rejection of the quest of power ended the Congress’s campaign. Perhaps not having to struggle for power led him to a naïve belief that he can be politically relevant without the quest for power. In his maiden speech as Vice President Rahul emotionally talked about what his mother told him “power that many people seek is poison” and “we should not chase power, but use it to empower others.” Rahul Gandhi was very sincere and genuine in what he said but unknowingly his childlike detachment from the quest of power took away the only reason to be a political leader. And without a political leader the Congress party did not have a campaign and, therefore, ceased to be relevant. Rahul Gandhi forgot the basic tenets of democracy - the only “antidote to power” in a democracy is that to get power one needs the consent of the people – and it is the seeking of this consent that “empowers voices”. Paradoxically, the political leaders in democracy who quest for power are more grounded in reality in terms of what people actually need while those who detach themselves from power live in a narrow, make belief world of what they think the people want. Such leaders, unfortunately, have a paternalistic approach to the betterment and empowerment of society and therefore, for good reasons are rejected by the people. This is precisely what happened to the Congress party in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

Well for the sake of Indian democracy it is extremely important that the Congress party is revived. The disciplining mechanism of democracy is effective only if people have alternatives. Otherwise it is a matter of time before power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The resurrection of the Congress party is in national interest and it can only happen if the animal spirits for quest of power are rekindled in the Congress leadership, particularly in Mr. Rahul Gandhi. In this regard there is a lot he can learn from his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, who had an unquenchable thirst for power. She derived her strength and power directly from the public and that made her a mass leader. She was on a perpetual campaign mode. In more recent times, Mr. Narendra Modi and Mr. Arvind Kejriwal have emerged as populist mass leaders, like Indira Gandhi, they have direct connect with the people, and the hunger and the drive to be in power, and so they campaign hard for it and the masses love and cheer them for it. Their politics of directly appealing to the anonymous “unknown” citizens to get power is a refreshing change from the “(a)dharma” of coalition politics of more recent times where only a few “known” elected representatives are appeased to retain power. For the sake of democracy the Congress party must rise to the new era of mass politics and it needs to remind itself that the quest for power is the only driving force for political survival.