C.V. Sukumaran
So, you have only a few days to go before Gujarat elections begins. Elections open the floodgates of political ambition. Politicians think people are mere voting fodder, and feign solicitous so as to win votes. It is a truism that next generation doesn’t interest them, obsessed as they’re with next general election.
No contest, the post of president is ceremonial, not powerful. It is the prime minister who wields the power. So, the prime ministerial chair has greater attraction for politicians. Prime minister’s job is challenging and exacting. His power-packed chair is more alluring than that of the president’s pompous one. For Mao Se Tung, power flew from the barrel of a gun. In democracies it usually flows from the ballet box, but in democratic India it flows not merely from the ballet box, it gushes out of moneybags too.
That the Constitution provides for only one prime minister, unlike multiple cabinet and state ministers makes the prime ministerial chair more coveted and sought after. Had there been numerous prime ministers, more aspirants could’ve found berths! And that explains why all the clamour politicians make for prime minister’s office.
Politicos think voters, literate and otherwise, fence sitters, and need to be pushed at the nick of time to make them fall into their respective sides. All the electioneering obviously hinges on that notion.
Our founding fathers seemed to be too trusting to foresee the advent of fraudulent and greedy politicians. They were upfront and didn’t seem to have visualised the shape of things to come!
Once Deva Gowda, the farmer, famed for his forty winks, aspired to be prime minister. He left off his farmer’s plough to wield political power, and was blessed with the coveted post. It was he who fired the ambition of lesser men and women to crave the highest seat of power. Every Tom, Dick and Harry now wants to be prime minister. I fancy Tom awakes startled from his afternoon nap in a cheerful mood and tell his sidekicks about his intention of running for prime minister. And he does.
As schoolchildren, we were under the delusion that only great men could become prime ministers! We knew that Nehru and Shastri were great. We held them in great awe. But Nehru was more popular among children.
His long innings as prime minister had led us to surmise, nay even to assume during our early school days, that Nehru’s name was synonymous with prime minister. So, one of us asked our class teacher a foolish question, ‘Sir, who is the Nehru of Japan?”
Once, when Nehru visited a small town, not far from our place, schools there and in the surrounding areas were given a day off so that children could have a glimpse of the great man. But we couldn’t do so because he was quite out of bounds for us. The present day prime ministers too are inaccessible to the people. For a different reason, though. They are shielded from the people by gun and lathi wielding security guards. And a sea of policemen keeps them at bay, thanks to terrorism. Indeed, times have changed!
