Political Science

Like all career options, a career in politics, too, has its own particular requirements. Cunningness, meanness, trickery and treachery are some of the unholy elements that the holiness of a political god is generally supposed to be composed of. Most of our youngsters find themselves quite incapable of inculcating these, for, obviously, it would take a lifetime of unlearning whatever little they absentmindedly picked up in their moral science classes. The position adds upto a situation where we have a number of able politicians, but not a single good man among them. Not to mention that it is when the term ‘good’ is considered in its bare minimal import. But still we might not have lost all that we started off with on the day Pandit Nehru delivered his ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech. After all, noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani is not wrong when he optimistically notes that he (and we) at least has an honest Prime Minister. If after fifty years of rotten politics we could still put an unquestionably honest man at the top, it is no mean achievement. It is reflective of the fact that, sooner or later honesty pays. And pays, well enough. One need not essentially lose all of one’s human self to become a politician.

The bottomline is that a career in politics is only and essentially for those who do not treat it as a career at all. The desire to build, not just a party and not just a government, but also the nation has to be central to one’s political ambitions. Politics may be the art of securing political power and retaining it, but the power, once secured, has to be used for nobler ends than perpetuation of it. Power used to garner more and more power would lead only, and only, to the erosion of it. That is what our politicians basically fail to realize. Therefore, ideally politics is for those who are not passionate about it. That might sound a little unconventional, but the basic requirement for one to be a good politician is one who does not want to be a politician and has no hunger for power. Politics for political ends will always be bad politics. Not that we have not had wise people in positions of power, but their wisdom evaporated under the intoxication of power. Power corrupts, and only those who have no huger for power are immune to its ill effects. Therefore, the best politician is one who is least of a politician. It is a combination almost impossible to find, just like an honest politician.