Young horses run better, new brooms sweep clean and pickle should be consumed before it turns rancid. When will Indian politicians learn to retire gracefully and not try to keep clinging on to positions of power till clinging on to life itself becomes a challenge?
The big banyan does not allow any other tree to grow under it. Likewise our political leaders do not allow young, honest & upright leadership to grow – they clip the wings of any potential threat to their fiefdom with swift ruthlessness. Only sycophants thrive and in return elevate their leader to demi-God status. Over a period of time addiction takes hold and the leaders begin to believe themselves as indispensable – God’s gift to the people! Their addiction to power is often projected as love for the country or state, never mind if decisions & policies clearly reflect that love for the chair has always come first and the State a distant last!
Addiction to power is very much real. Modern science has conclusively established that this type of addiction can be as strong & serious as addiction to drugs like cocaine.
Power triggers the increased production of testosterone in both men and women, leading to increased dopamine in the brain’s reward system called nucleus accumbens. Dopamine, in the right portions improves the brain functioning and makes people smarter even as it provides a ‘high’. But like everything else in life, too much power (and hence too much dopamine) can disrupt normal cognition and emotion, leading to gross errors of judgement, imperviousness to risk, huge egocentricity and lack of empathy for others even as it slowly leads to addiction. This is the stage commonly referred to as ‘power going to the head”.
Why then does power not get as addictive and ‘go to the head’ as easily in the western world? Firstly, power if not intended to be abused, means nothing more than a tool to serve the people.
Secondly, the other important pillars of democracy, that are essential to ensure that political leaders don’t turn into power addicts, are much stronger and effective there. In India, political interference has undermined the functioning of every other pillar of democracy. Our investigating agencies and police are reduced to caged parrots or dogs that can be set loose on adversaries. The bureaucrats often behave like thin soldiers. The less said about our media, the better are my chances of getting published. Even our judiciary often comes under a cloud of suspicion. Indeed, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
Politics is a messy game, but given the right conditions, it can still attract high-quality leaders. To get honest, intelligent politicians of integrity, we the ordinary citizens should first learn to appreciate such virtues and not to get swayed by pretenders and power addicts who will just about do anything to cling on to power.
