Public in republic

Our leaders are not gods

Every time I see it, I feel repulsed — so perhaps, as the wise say, the germ lies in me, the problem is mine. But what else do you do when you see perfectly strong, perfectly intelligent, perfectly arrived people bow low and grovel before the khadi clad, who don the white cloth as Goliath or Duryodhana (or even David and Arjuna) may have worn their armour? Walk into any gathering and the politician chief guest, always late, always ready with a humorous line, expects the ingratiating masses to create around him an illusion of reverence, respect, power and fear. People stand up, bend over, ignore the person in front, try to catch the leader’s eye, create a smile…

And the leader himself behaves almost as if he’s God.

Except that he’s not. In an earlier day, when the social structure demanded obsequious obedience and the king had absolute powers over life and property, the favour of kings was important across civilisations. Egypt worshipped the ruler as divine, Rome under the imperial cult worshipped the emperor as God, Indian priests endorsed the divine origin of the king, China considered the emperor as the Son of Heaven whose edicts were sacred, Japan conceived of a ‘god who is also human’. The king derived his powers from the divine. He was a part of God. He was God.

Today in democracies we elect our leaders — and they are humans like us. The elected leader no longer ‘rules’ over his ‘kingdom’ but ‘governs’ the ‘country’. Expressions like ‘ruling party’, ‘ruling class’ became outdated on January 26, 1950, when 29 months after Independence, India became a republic — a republic with no state religion, implying a unified diversity where those governing it do so as ministers for five-year terms, not rulers for a lifetime. They can’t push any particular body of religious thought, leave alone attain a God-like status.

If there is one prayer with which I evoke the almighty this Republic Day moment, it is to give strength to those who vote to have faith that they’re not electing gods, to those who get elected to know that they’re not gods, and for both to know that God resides in them; they need not bow before anyone and not expect others to prostrate before them. Let us be strong, for without strength we won’t be a strong nation. Let us stand tall, for unless we do that our nation won’t attain the heights that destiny demands from her.