|
This
is truer of politicians the world over than of other public figures;
or at least so the politicians believe. If they have charisma, they
often manage to sail through their career whatever be the skeletons
in their cupboards. Then there are public relations exercises calculated
to give them a phony build-up. However, such a build-up often blows
up in their faces when the cadavers rattle out of their closets.
But if a politician combines charisma with character, he takes all
criticism in his stride in the certainty that none of the mud flung
at him will stick.
Anyway, 'charisma' has become a cliché, used mostly by those unfamiliar
with its origin. It was a term used by Christian theologians and
a few social scientists who had read Max Weber. Not long ago it
was used by one of the characters in "Pogo", a comic strip. This
is what Weber would have called truly the "routinization of charisma".
But, then, most politicians the world over are not educated enough
to know all this.
"Charisma", says the OED, is the "ability to inspire followers with
devotion and enthusiasm, an attractive aura, great charm, a divinely
conferred power or talent." In other words, it is a natural endowment,
not a cultivated virtue. However, mercifully for mankind, many politicians,
particularly those in power, are acutely conscious of their lack
of it. But are they all despised for the deficiency? No, voters
everywhere have become mature enough to be able to look behind the
attractive mask where it exists. They now form their judgment on
the basis of the performance and track record of the dignitary rather
than by what his or her PR men may have said of them.
There
can be no other explanation for many Presidents and Prime Ministers
having ticked without possessing charisma. Jawaharlal Nehru and
John F.Kennedy, to cite only two examples, had this quality in such
abundance as to make their respective countrymen overlook their
peccadilloes exposed by the media. Others like George Bush Sr. and
Chandrashekhar had the compensatory satisfaction that their respective
countrymen prized their services and that people's esteem was the
biggest reward.
"The greatest pleasure in life," wrote Walter Bagehot, "is doing
what people say one cannot do." Assumption of office by Bush and
Chandrashekhar revealed a trait: they could be dared to attempt
dangerous things. There could be nothing more dangerous for Bush
than ordering the attack on Iraq when it threatened the sovereignty
of neighboring Arab countries, and for Chandrashekhar than allowing
the refueling of American aircraft in India at the height of the
conflict in spite of public opinion in India being overwhelmingly
against such a gesture.
Besides their charisma, Nehru and Kennedy had an advantage: their
times were secure and self-satisfied, notwithstanding the Bay of
Pigs development in the USA and Chinese aggression against India.
The strength of that period was its steadiness of nerve. If his
vast reading and participation in India's freedom struggle widened
Nehru's sense of joy of life, they also taught its littleness and
transience. Nehru thus became a rebel who was also profoundly conscious
of the dominance of the Unalterable Law. Prometheus was a fine fellow
in his way, but Zeus was the king of gods and men!
The two did not believe in parading their achievements whose name
was legion. It was well enough to be successful if success could
be achieved unostentatiously and carried lightly as if it fell to
them in the ordinary process of nature. There was no appearance
of seeking it. Both had seen much of distinguished people, so much
so that they always seemed to have a foot in the greater world.
Not that they ever gave this impression by anything they said or
did, but they always had the air of those who had seen enough of
the outer world to be able to judge it with detachment. Indeed,
they had always had the detachment from the atmosphere that is called
distinction. Their manner was self-possessed and urbane, but there
was always in it something of a pleasant aloofness.
They may not always have been right. But they were seldom wrong.
If stubborn refusal to rush in where angels might fear to tread
could be held against statesmen, with or without charisma, it was
not in either case because both Indians and Americans constantly
remembered the words of Confucius that " the cautious seldom err,"
and, consequently, worshipped the ground the two leaders walked
on.
|
