Morality,
spirituality and elections by Shri T.S. Ananthu
As
most of us know, the split in AAP fructified on March 28, 2015, at a meeting of
their National Executive wherein Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan were
expelled from their Political Affairs Committee. Much has been written and said
about the merits and demerits of what happened at that meeting. However, not
that much attention has been given to a central point on which Kejriwal asked
the NE members to base their vote on. He said:
‘You
have to choose between those who lead you to victory versus those who lead you
to defeat.’
By
a vast majority, the NE members voted in favour of the one who had led them to
that spectacular victory in Delhi, and so Yadav and Bhushan were expelled.
Yogendra
Yadav too alluded to this subject when he wrote to all AAP volunteers later on:
“How to keep at bay the greed of instant success? Can
success be achieved without compromising with one's moral ideals?”
However, while he raised this important
question, he did not seem to provide an answer. So, I wrote to two grandsons of
Mahatma Gandhi (also of Rajaji) whom I have been in touch with since the 1970s
– Rajmohan Gandhi and Gopalakrishna Gandhi. Both are well known for their moral
standing. Gopalakrishna penned his answer in one brief sentence:
“I
believe it is just about possible, though extremely difficult.”
Rajmohan’s
response was:
“A good
answer to your question cannot come from me. What little I know pis this:
many elections of the kind I have fought are won or lost because of a 'wave'
which some can spot in advance.”
As is obvious from Rajmohan’s response, he did not
think the voters paid much heed to his moral standing. When he contested in
1990 from Amethi against Rajiv Gandhi, hardly anyone said: ‘hey, here is the
grandson of Gandhiji, whose family members have never gone after power or pelf,
unlike those from the Nehru dynasty. Why not vote for him?’. When he contested
on the AAP ticket in 2014, once again, his moral standing was ignored. Why is
that the case? Why is it that voters in the same country which stood like a
rock behind Gandhiji chose not to back his grandson who, unlike many other
politicians, has a clean record and is well known for his ability to lead
organizations? Has the Indian’s attraction to the moral fibre of its leaders
gone down? If so, how come AAP swept the Delhi Assembly elections within a few
months of Rajmohan’s defeat in the same city?
I -think it is a good idea for all of us to ponder
over these fundamental questions. Let me put down here what comes to my mind as
the answer.
My
thoughts on these important questions:
I
think morality does play a role in deciding a voter’s choice, but it is only
one factor amongst many. For instance, if residents of a village badly need a
road built so that bus services can be extended to their village, and a leading
light in the village promises to get this done if they all vote for his party,
and they believe his promise, they are likely to become part of his ‘vote bank’
– even if they know that in the process of getting the road built their
‘leader’ is likely to line his pockets. Thus, a morally upright person who is
unable to ‘deliver the goods’ is unlikely to get the voters’ support. But that
does not mean that morality is never a factor in the decision the voter makes.
If two people are contesting an election and both seem capable of delivering
the goods equally well, they would generally choose the one who seems more
upright between the two of them. I would view AAP’s spectacular performance in
Feb. 2015 in this light. In May 2014 voters had preferred BJP to AAP because
Modi seemed capable of delivering the goods, and Kejriwal’s abrupt resignation
had raised questions in their minds as to whether he was capable of governance.
But his unqualified apology – coming as it did from a person whom they
considered honest to the core – was accepted by them. By Feb. 2015 there was a
feeling that Modi may not be that capable of implementing his promises as they
had supposed in 2014, and so the voters immediately switched over to those whom
they considered morally upright, and who now promised to deliver the goods and
not run away from responsibility.
One
of the important things politicians decide before their campaign is – what
‘goodies’ do we promise to deliver, and to whom? If the promises are attractive,
the politician is likely to get the votes. Most of the time the goodies
promised are only to a section of the voters – selected on the basis of caste,
religion, region, language, class etc. In such a case, even if a political
party wins, it is never a ‘wave’, for the votes get divided – as happened in
the recent elections in J&K, where there was one ‘Hindu’ wave in Jammu and
a counter-wave (‘Muslim’) in the Valley, thus effectively cancelling each
other.
Whenever
a ‘wave’ has happened across the board, it has always been the result of a
clever positioning by a political party that promises to deliver goods to all
and sundry – at least, the overwhelming majority. Thus, the Kejriwal wave of
Feb. 2015 was based upon promises such as free water and reduced electricity
rates across the board. The Modi wave of 2014 was based on a promise of
‘development’ (meaning, increase in income) to all sections of society,
including the Muslims. The first wave that we saw in India was in 1971, when
Indira Gandhi coined the catchy slogan ‘garibi hatao’, and created headlines by
nationalizing the banks and removing the privileges of the princely class,
promising that all except the top 1% would benefit by her policies. This never
happened, of course – and when instead a select few scoundrels were seen
accumulating enormous wealth illegally, the tide turned against her, and
intensified when she tried to suppress it with her Emergency. This universal
disillusionment resulted in another wave – this time, againsther,
in 1977. But those who now came to power, though of a better moral fibre, were
singularly unable to ‘deliver the goods’. All sections of society were
again very disillusioned. So, we had a repeat of the Indira wave in 1979.
It
is worth noting that each ‘wave’ that we have witnessed was actually based upon
an expectation which was never fulfilled. Therefore, every election boils down
to a drama, a process which a British writer captured very well in the
following humourous way:
“Under democracy one party always
devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to
rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
What
is really important to recognize is that what creates a ‘wave’ - ‘goodies’
promised across the board (such as ‘development for all’ a la Modi)
- can NEVER be delivered. If they are made available to one section of society,
it is always at the expense of the other. Gandhi conveyed this through his
famous statement – ‘the earth provides enough for every man’s need, but not for
every man’s greed’. It is not possible to make everybody rich in the modern
sense of the term, because modern ‘development’ is always at the cost of
Nature, and the earth has a fixed amount of non-renewable resources.
Therefore,
elections often deteriorate into one-up-man-ship games by politicians trying to
please one section of society at the cost of the other. In such a scenario,
issues like sharing of river waters, proficiency in a particular language for
getting jobs, giving a particular caste or religious grouping preferences etc.
become very emotive issues, often resulting in violent confrontations. But they
do get votes for those who are promoting these confrontations – irrespective of
their moral standing.
There
is a story of a politician who wanted to get elected from a working class
constituency. He came up with a brilliant idea to garner votes. “If you elect
me,” he told them during an election rally,” I will make sure that you only
have a three-day working week”. Not to be outsmarted, his opponent came to the
microphone and countered with “But if you elect me, I will make sure you need
to come to work only every Wednesday”. One of the workers shouted from the
audience –‘what do you mean, every Wednesday?”
This
story is meant to illustrate why it is that people espousing extremist
ideologies tend to get attention and votes so easily these days. The vast
majority of people want to climb the ‘get rich quickly’ bandwagon, in which the
expectations are raised to unsustainable levels, and the hope is that the
modern ‘system’ with its wonderful technologies will meet those expectations at
the least cost – so, why work even on every Wednesday if one can get one’s
salary without that?
This
trend is catching up in a big way not just in our country, but all over the
world. For example, why is it that sectarian fissures have developed in Iraq?
The fundamental reason is that Sunnis and Shias have been promised increased
share of incomes from oil and such ‘natural’ revenues by those who claim to be
their religious leaders. Even the ‘secular’ Saddam Hussein resorted to this
tactic to retain his hold on power, and now IS is practicing it in a very
blatant way. Sunnis from all over the world are being attracted to shift to IS
territory and join them on the basis of promises that include the provision of
a lovely house, a car and girls. These are the kind of promises that always
backfire in the end. Assuming the IS goal of converting all of humanity into
Sunnis (by eliminating those who refuse to convert) is fulfilled, is it really
going to be possible to supply these ‘goodies’ to each one? For instance, if
each person were to own a car, how many years of supply of gasoline will the
earth have? What about the iron ore needed for the manufacture of the car? So,
in no time at all, there will be different groupings among the world’s Sunnis,
all fighting with each other for a better and bigger share of the world’s
scarce resources, but in the name of their particular group, whose
interpretation of the Koran they will claim is the ‘right’ one!
We
need to recognize that the modern goal of ‘development for all’ has pushed us
all into a fool’s paradise, resulting in the mayhem we are witnessing in so
many parts of the world. At the root of all our problems – which may seem to
stem from different sources such as religion, ethnicity, language, nationality,
class, caste etc. – is our definition of what constitutes development and
progress.
Recognizing
that the modern military-industrial complex is luring us into unachievable
goals, Gandhi had suggested a different route, as spelt out in his seminal book
“Hind Swaraj” – in which, he made it clear, his advice is meant not just for
Indians but for all of mankind, including the Englishman. It is very important
to understand that what he meant by “Swaraj” is very different from the way the
word in understood by most people, including Kejriwal and Yadav. To him, Swaraj
meant Swa+Raj – self-control, control over one’s own mind. Therefore, it was
primarily an individual concept, not a political one. In his vision, Swaraj at
the social level could occur only if a sufficient number of people practiced it
at the individual level. Concepts such as village republics and local
self-governance (which AAP has been stressing) flowed from this basic notion of
individual self-control. But these concepts are not implementable at the social
level in the absence of Swa+Raj at the individual level.
Therefore,
Swaraj from the Gandhian point of view is basically a spiritual effort, wherein
we try to bring our mind under our control – so that we learn to distinguish
between need and greed, and thereby limit ourselves to our needs, which Mother
Earth is ever willing to provide to all of humanity. ‘Mohalla sabhas’ of the
kind AAP has been championing as the basis for decision-making will not work
until our very definition of ‘development’ is based on self-control as the goal
of life.
If
material growth is not the goal of life, what should it be? If we want to
pursue Swaraj, the goal of life has to be –becoming a better human being –
rather than increasing our so-called ‘standard of living’. In theory, almost
everyone would agree that becoming a better human being is a desirable goal,
but when it comes to practice, it becomes very difficult to marry this goal
with the goal of ‘prosperity’ that modern development promotes. When I was
living in USA in 1965, I had come to know a wonderful, loving, helpful family,
who were trying their best to practice (as well as preach) Christianity. Their
home, which I used to visit often, was in a place called East Palo Alto – which
at that time housed only whites. One day, when I went there, they were all in a
sullen, depressed state of mind. When I inquired, they told me with alarm
written all over their features that a black man had purchased a house in East
Palo Alto. “Why does that bother you?,” I asked, “I thought you treated blacks
as equal, especially if they are Christians.” They replied: “Oh yes, we do, but
we don’t want them as neighbours. That depresses the property market, and all
the loans we have taken for buying the goods to maintain our standard of living
are based on the assumption that our lovely home’s market value will increase
exponentially.” They soon put up a ‘For Sale’ board on their lawn, and
succeeded in selling their lovely home before the prices went down too low.
This trend picked up momentum, real estate prices dived, and East Palo Alto
soon became a ‘ghetto’ for the blacks!
We
may not realize it, but built into the value framework of modern development
are features which force us to become worse rather than better human beings.
Modern development is based upon a creation of desires – for
goods, for new inventions, for a bigger share of nature’s resources.
Therefore,
we end up treating the ‘other’ (be it the religion or race or caste or
whatever) as a competitor, to be outsmarted – or. worse still, eliminated
- even if that is not our intention. The highly respected economist John
Maynard Keynes was frank enough to admit this in simple, straightforward terms:
“We
must all pretend to ourselves and to each other that foul is far and fair is
foul, for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must
be our gods for a little longer, for it is only these gods who can take us out
of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.”
Gandhi’s
ideas were based on a recognition of the truth of what Keynes has stated above
– that in the name of ‘economic necessity’, morality is being sacrificed.
Therefore, he suggested the opposite – putting a limit on our material desires
so that our higher faculties may be better developed, resulting in our becoming
better human beings. But the fact is that the people of India have never really
accepted Gandhi’s ideas, even though we call him the Father of the Nation.
Beginning with Nehru, who used the word ‘preposterous’ to describe Gandhi’s
booklet “Hind Swaraj”, even his own so-called followers (with the possible exception
of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) had rejected it. And now, with ‘globalization’ in
the air and everyone’s penchant for improving our ‘standard of living’, the
vast majority of people want to go in the direction opposite to what Gandhi had
recommended.
Therefore,
ideas like Swaraj are not easy to implement, as the masses are today too
enamoured of ‘development’. However, a good leader can attempt to
turn the tide, provided he himself is practising Swa+Raj – the
spiritual goal of gaining full control over the mind. What does this mean
in actual practice? It does not mean that Kejriwal losing his temper and abusing Yadav and
Bhushan during that infamous phone conversation amounts to proof that he is not
trying to practice Swa+Raj. But if he does not feel remorse for it by resolving
not to treat others in this fashion again, then he has not set the goal of
Swa+Raj for himself – and so his attempts at Swaraj for Delhi or India will
come to naught. Similarly, during his address at Ramlila grounds, when he spoke
of the ills of ahankar and how the voters had punished AAP on
account of this in the 2014 elections, if he was referring to himself, then he
is practising Swa+Raj. But if, as many analysts have said, it was an oblique
reference to Yadav and Bhushan whom he was planning to throw out of the party,
then he was far away from this ideal. He was ignoring the truth of that famous
saying which I first heard from Rajmohan Gandhi:
“When you point a finger at someone,
remember, there are three fingers pointing at you.”
Looking
at one’s own shortcomings, admitting them and trying to overcome them is the
essence of Swa+Raj. This seems a sure way to lose elections, where ‘putting
down the other’ is standard practice. Therefore, as Gopalakrishna Gandhi has
written, winning elections on a moral platform is “extremely difficult”. But it
has been done, and it can be done. Two examples that come to my mind are Lal
Bahadur Shastri and Gulzarilal Nanda. When Shastri was Prime Minister, I
remember an incident when he was visiting Bangalore. Those days, India was
always facing a food shortage, something the newer generation has not
experienced. At that particular time, Karnataka had been in the grip of a
severe food crisis on account of a drought, and Shastri had been called there
by the Chief Minister specifically to request a special package of aid from the
Central government. On the evening of his arrival, there was a tea party in his
honour, where the menu included specialities like fried cashew nuts,
tasty sweets etc. Shastri excused himself from eating any of these. Then,
when his turn as the guest of honour came to make a speech, he merely said:
“Tomorrow, when your Chief Minister requests me for a special grant from the
Centre by pointing to the shortage of food in this state, I am merely going to
read out the menu of items served at this function”.
Shastri’s
speech would not have had the desired effect if he had himself partaken of any
of the goodies. Therefore, a few days later, when he called upon each Indian to
skip a meal a day for some days, there was a massive response. Only a leader
who practices Swa+Raj himself can evoke such a response. This is where the
importance of individual self-control comes in. Not just at the level of food
and money, but also at the level of power. Gulzarilal Nanda was made Acting
Prime Minister twice, but was never elevated to that supreme post which all
politicians hanker after. But he never minded it, and when the second time he
was overlooked and Indira Gandhi was instead elected by the party, he merely
shifted to a one-room rented tenement in Delhi in which he lived out the rest
of his life.
If
a politician were to practice this kind of Swa+Raj on himself, what are the
chances that he would get into positions of power? Most people would think the
chances of getting elected on a platform of humility is very low. But if
winning is the sole aim of the politician, then morality has to be bid goodbye.
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A few thoughts on morality in politics & Swa-raj as explained by Gandhiji.
1. In as much as that politics is all about influencing
people & events. In a democracy, reaching a position of influence over
the majority of the electorate is the all consuming objective of the
politician. Personal morality is but one of the features of a leader that may
be appealing to the electorate. Frequently, more attractive features as
you've elaborated are peddled to get the votes. It is also easier to do so.
Equally important, a morally upright person is more likely to be loathe to
boast about her uprightness, even mention about it in publicity. In a democracy,
that is self - defeating when winning elections is the objective.
2. An individual elector would look for whats appealing in
the personal perspective of immediate/ short term/ medium / long term
features of the candidates. A candidate's morality would be more appealing if
it is shown to be lacking than otherwise, as frequently seen. It appears
easier for morality to become a influencing factor collectively at times than
at a personal level. A candidate's personal integrity & high morals stand
a very poor chance against promise of goodies & freebies, personal or
collective.
3. It is easier for everyone to highlight negatives as
there is an excitement in knowing/ talking about the negatives of a person
that positives can never match. We can see that happening always - a rape, an
actor getting convicted for a crime, a politician accused of corruption, get
much more attention than the excellent work of Satyarthi or the moral
uprightness of numerous but a minority of government employees who suffer for
protecting their integrity & honesty while at public service.
4. A leader who invokes the latent
aspiration for everyone to be good, to be successful, to be morally
upright
has a better chance to get elected over another
equally morally upright candidate.
5. Greed is a basic human trait
that is better regulated than suppressed or avoided in the society. At a
personal level, what is adequate is the individual's estimate that differs
not only amongst people but also with time for the same person. Hence,
Gandhiji's Swa-raj is more a personal ideal to work for than to be a
collective benchmark.
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Shri T.S. Ananthu’s response.
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I particularly liked two points - (i) a morally upright
person will never boast about his uprightness as humility is the foundation of
all other good traits (ii) good workers and good behaviour (by people like
government servants) does not catch peoples' attention because the media needs
to highlight the sensational and catchy stuff. It is for this reason that
sectarian and communal differences tend to get exaggerated - no one, for
instance, mentions the hundreds of Hindus who risked their lives to save their
Sikh friends in Delhi during the 1984 riots, or the Muslims who protected the
Pandits when they were being terrorized in Kashmir.
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