Leaders

Overheard:

Nephew: Hello, all well I trust.

Uncle: Yes, in the well ... as usual! How are you?

Nephew: All’s well. Been very busy!

Uncle: Busy as a bee? Or like a Big B?

So what do you think, are the Tatas saying ta-ta?

Nephew: I hope so. If everything was fine with Singur, if Mamata did not even exist, then was everything glorious in West Bengal? Hardly. Its a criminal mafia raj here, with no rule of law at all. The constitution of India does not function here. But of course the media and the stinking capitalists love to have a single point to make deals with, looting the land and the people.

Uncle: Or is it that the land and the people allow themselves to be looted by the stinking fellows?

Either way its sad...

Nephew: Absolutely. But then you need leaders who raise the people, above their level. Here the leaders sink the people even below their existing level.

Uncle: Wanting a leader is a sign of slavery!

Nephew: Spartacus led a slave rebellion, remember?

Uncle: After all, people should raise themselves. It is this want that has sown the seeds of slavery.

Nephew: I don’t want a leader. I am merely observing. We need leaders who teach the people self governance, swaraj, to be a ruler of oneself.

Uncle: Another such want is for a guru!

People are capable of teaching themselves.

Nephew: We need leaders who teach people the harsh realities of life but encourage them to work hard and journey together with resolve to collectively achieve fine things for all.

Uncle: It is such misplaced trust in others that causes downfall. There is no need for such saffron-clad or topi-clad guys.

Nephew: See where we have reached with leaving things to people! But yes, things have actually not been left to people. People are powerless. And the so-called leaders are unaccountable. Hence the basic spirit of self governance, ordinary decency, has decayed.

Uncle: People have common sense which they should use and they do use it when crisis dawns.

After all democracy is for, by and of people. Where is the question of leaders in democracy? It is needed for dictatorship and in pseudo-democracies like ours.

If you want leaders you should allow them to loot us, and rape us too!

Nephew: Thanks for this stern sermon. Yes, you are right. We need genuine democracy.

Uncle: Then we should trust people and not the leaders.

Nephew: I heard someone say that the two houses of parliament should be converted, one house into a Hindu go-shala and the other one into a Muslim abattoir.

Uncle: We should not complain about the tricky leaders since we have put them there.
It’s a leaders’ parliament and hence it is rotten. It should be a people’s parliament. Which is a utopia!

Nephew: So what is to be done?

Uncle: Lets keep our fingers crossed and learn to accept the realities of life, like dumb cattle.

Nephew: And then?

Uncle: We all die and go to heaven hopefully.

Nephew: Proceed mutely and meekly to slaughter?

Uncle: Slaughter is unavoidable, so why make a noise?

Nephew: Yes of course, all is maya, we slaughter millions of beings even as we breathe. So, likewise, someone else is slaughtering us. All be in maya and enjoy in the meanwhile, eat heartily, have fune, what difference does it make!

Uncle: Sorry, I have to go for my piano lessons, to slaughter western music. Bye.


Image: Rotten Rulers, A novel by Terry Deary, a book in the Horrible Histories Special series, Scholastic, 2005.