National

That Thing Called Spine

Do we lack it as a people or are only our politicians afflicted with it? Or does the Congress have a patent over sycophancy, Raj style?

Advertisement

That Thing Called Spine
info_icon
info_icon

"It's a patron-client relationshipz. Once you have a patron, you can do anything: lie, cheat, steal and get away with it." Dipankar Gupta

info_icon

"Darbardari or paying court is part of our legacy, we've been bowing and scraping to those above us for centuries." Khushwant Singh

info_icon

"It's an impediment to modernity, democracy, good governance. You can't be looking over your shoulders always." Andre Beteille

info_icon

"A leader may be a role model, a pathfinder. The BJP at least has a galaxy of them. Look at the regional parties." Arun Jaitley

info_icon

"The danger of this pervasive culture lies only in one thing. When the leader begins to believe it." V.P. Singh

Advertisement

For a Congress president who wanted to keep her birthday a low-key affair, it turned out to be an unforgettable party: Union ministers, chief ministers and governors lined up to pay their homage. Union home minister Shivraj Patil declared the day as Tyag Divas, likening Sonia Gandhi to Buddha, Ashoka and Gandhi. Party workers broke into song and dance under the gigantic vinyl billboards hailing her as "Saint, Mother, Mother India, Guide and Pride".

info_icon

The tree-lined stretch of Akbar Road between Vigyan Bhavan and 10, Janpath was transformed into a carnival, with folk dancers from Karnataka competing with brass bands from Paharganj and dervish-like Mahila Congress workers. A gigantic garland, an opulent brocade shawl blessed reportedly by every swamiji worth his math brought by the irrepressible Congress MP K. Subbirami Reddy, and a 240-kg vanilla-and-strawberry cake completed the festivities. It failed to gain entry into the sanitised precincts of 10, Janpath but that hardly crushed party spirits. Eager Congress workers lunged at it, fighting for their piece of Sonia's cake.

But ask any Congress worker if this wasn't a vulgar display of our national trait—sycophancy—the answer would be an outraged "No". It is, as Congress general secretary Ambika Soni explains, merely "an expression of the pride in a successful leader, a leader who has brought them back to power". This was a chance no one wanted to miss—December 9, Sonia's first birthday after the Congress returned to power after a nine-year vanvaas. It is, as Soni explains, "the Indian way to celebrate—look at our weddings". In the same breath she adds, "Sonia Gandhi is against all public displays of affection and loyalty. She has conveyed this verbally and even written to all the Congress chief ministers. But all this takes a while to percolate down."

On the contrary, sociologists, who believe that we imbibe sycophancy "with our mother's milk", point out that it will be Sonia who will have to adjust to the adulation rather than the other way round. "It's a case of supply creating the demand," asserts sociologist Andre Beteille. "Sonia Gandhi may not be responsible for the way her partymen behave around her, she may not even have made the first move in demanding it, but with our long tradition of bowing and scraping before superiors, she can't really fight it," he says.

Agrees Girija Vyas, who heads the party's media committee: "Sonia can't say she won't accept the good wishes of her colleagues. It is the wish and right of party workers to greet their leader.... Political parties are like large families—and the leader is like the head of the family." Which is why, according to her, appointments were given for those fortunate enough to gain entry into 10, Janpath "for convenience". And the 240-kg cake? "It's just a reflection of the size and fortune of the party," says former general secretary Salman Khursheed, adding more seriously, "Most people don't realise that the visual displays of affection—which outsiders may dismiss as sycophancy—are just what they see. Inside the party, there are serious discussions and even violent disagreements on priorities. If we didn't have that, you could have called us a hollow party."

To Sonia's credit, she does try and discourage the fawning. Like when she upbraided party workers at a Congress meeting at Delhi's Talkatora Stadium in August for spending far too much time showering praise on her and thus depriving others of an opportunity to speak. She has also told her colleagues to stop buying garlands and other tokens of "affection" and, instead, donate the money to the party treasury.

Of course, such demonstrations of "loyalty" to the leader exists across the political spectrum with only the Left parties justifiably claiming to be the exception.From "structured parties" such as the Congress and the BJP which have, over the years, moved to being leader-centric organisations, to regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, or the Dravidian parties in the south which tend to be centred around "the leader", to parties like the National Conference or Akali Dal, which have now become family-owned enterprises, sycophancy is today a fact of political life. "We are a feudal society and we like idol worship," explains former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and Congress general secretary, Digvijay Singh.

True, sycophancy does exist in all parties and indeed in all of society, but social historians point out that the Congress is more to blame than others in promoting the kiss-your-feet culture. "Why the Congress must be singled out," points out Ramachandra Guha, "is because it was a nationalistic party with a tradition of placing ideology above personality. They started out differently from the Laloos and Mulayams, they tried to introduce modernity and political ideology, and have now abdicated that responsibility." Agrees political commentator Inder Malhotra: "Jawaharlal Nehru tried his best to discourage it. If anybody touched his feet, he was infuriated unlike many other leaders of his time who would even extend their feet to be touched in supplication. Indira Gandhi, of course, never did anything to discourage it but she was sufficiently sophisticated not to be delighted with the crude displays her hangers-on indulged in. But now it's spreading like cancer everywhere. It's a measure of our national degradation."

According to former prime minister and ex-Congressman V.P. Singh, "Sycophancy began in the Congress when factional politics emerged in the states and state leaders began to demand absolute loyalty. The power struggle within the party demanded that the leaders should have absolutely reliable followers. Those followers were rewarded with tickets and positions. So, much began to depend on the leader, a party worker's individual advancement depended on his ability to prove his 'loyalty'. So sycophancy began to work from the district to the central level". "Sycophancy reached new political heights during Indira Gandhi's time thanks to her insecurity," agrees Guha. "This whole thing about rewarding Gandhi family loyalists with plum posts and ministries is an indication of how sycophancy thrives." Adds sociologist Dipankar Gupta: "It's the patron-client relationship in our political system: once you have a patron, you can do anything, lie, cheat, steal and get away with it."

Khushwant Singh, however, believes it goes back further than that."Darbardari (paying court) is part of our legacy, we've been bowing and scraping to those above us for centuries.Nehru wasn't above being flattered even if he liked his flattery in a more sophisticated form. There is not a single party where it doesn't flourish. Did you ever hear, for instance, of Vajpayee the poet until he became prime minister? Suddenly Pavan Varma was translating his poems into English, Jagjit Singh sang his songs, Uma Sharma danced to them...."

For the BJP—and its predecessor, the Jan Sangh—which grew in the shadow of the once mighty Congress, the latter was an unconscious role model, despite itself. The clearest indication of this came in the six years of BJP-led NDA rule, when Atal Behari Vajpayee was transformed from "First Among Equals" to a grandfatherly version of the Supreme Leader. If it all began a decade ago when party ideologue K. Govindacharya's career came to an abrupt end for having reportedly referred to him as the "mukhota" in a private communication, it found further expression in a central minister losing his job for having apparently been the main source for a critical article on Vajpayee in Time magazine.

Vajpayee, seen as the man who held the NDA coalition together, was not just viewed by partymen as the supremo, he even resisted any hint of talk of "twin leaders". When then party president Venkaiah Naidu spoke of Vajpayee, the vikas purush, and L.K. Advani, the loh purush, in the same breath, not only he but Advani too had to bear the brunt of Vajpayee's wrath. At a function at 7, Race Course Road to "felicitate"—actually appease—Vajpayee for a successful foreign visit, he publicly humiliated Advani. There was no more talk of twin leaders and at the party's national council meeting at Delhi's Ambedkar Stadium, BJP leaders vied with each other to stick to the Vajpayee theme, with Naidu saying the party's strength lay in "Vajpayee, Vajpayee and Vajpayee".

Ask BJP leaders why a party which professes to be a "party with a difference" and waxes eloquent about "collective leadership" has resorted to sycophancy and the cult of the leader, and they still deny it. Says party vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi: "Sonia Gandhi became a leader by accident, Vajpayeeji and Advaniji after years of work." Parliamentary party spokesperson V.K. Malhotra, while admitting there is a need for a powerful leadership, adds that feudalism is ingrained in our system. "The fact is we are an immature democracy. We need to build a leadership — haven't you seen all the rajas and maharajas who contest elections? Most of them win. It is still a feudal system." And party general secretary Arun Jaitley acknowledges the fact that "personality with wide appeal does improve a party's prospects. A leader may be a role model, an ideological pathfinder. But at least in the BJP, we have a galaxy of leaders—look at the smaller regional parties which revolve entirely round personalities and give people a false sense of empowerment to the people."

The danger of this pervasive culture lies only in one thing, says V.P. Singh: "When the leader begins to believe it." The only way to guard against it, he believes, is by becoming accessible to more people. "The more accessible you are, the greater the protection against sycophancy. In the case of Indira Gandhi, she was very accessible and she took inputs from a vast cross-section. Sonia Gandhi, too, is very open-minded and tries to emulate that example but, in her case, security constraints make her less accessible than is desirable. But think of the odds she has battled to reach her current position—not among partymen, but among the people," he says. It's only natural, according to sociologists, that leaders not only justify the sycophancy but often demand it as well. "After all," as Gupta says, "that's how they themselves came to power." Nor is it possible for a few individuals to resist it, they add."It is not possible for one, or even say 15 individuals to opt out of the culture of sycophancy.It's an atmosphere which sucks you in, even if you find it personally distasteful. You would be suspected of harbouring ill-will if you were to choose to opt out," says Gupta. Besides, he adds, "the price that a politician or a civil servant would pay by opting out is very high."

But there are other risks involved in succumbing to the pervasive culture, experts point out. "It's a serious impediment to modernity, democracy, good administration, good research, everything. You can't function at your optimum if you have to look over your shoulder all the time to keep your superiors satisfied," say Beteille. "You need a real leader to stop this culture of cringing, a leader who can trust able, young talent, not sycophants," says Guha, agreeing that sycophancy is a serious impediment for modern democracy. But that's easier said than done. As Beteille puts it: "Most sycophancy is the directionless, motiveless variety, a habit of the heart.To weed it out requires reflection and the courage to pay the price."

 

Advertisement



Smita Gupta And Sheela Reddy

Tags

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement