My boss once said that even a 90 yr old once made to sit in a CMs or PMs chair will turn youthful and refuses to die until the chair is taken away. Though its an exaggeration people tend to believe that there is some element of truth in the statement. Long time ago, when I heard from a friend that his position of power is the greatest turn-on for his girl friend, I wondered if what she was in love with was he or something he possessed. We often see people on the roads waving involuntarily even at the dumbest, the most insignificant and non-charismatic of ministers/chief ministers/prime ministers while they pass on the roads in an open top vehicle. My teacher once said that when he was a student Indira Gandhi visited his town in her early political career. Even the passersby who referred to her as 'some widow' took notice of her and waved when she was traveling in the vehicle. Another friend recently said, when asked why he goes to religious leaders was that they are people who have seen and known power unknown to us, hence any association with them as their devotees will rub some of that power into us. There is some entity which we call power existing in various places around us, towards which people gravitate consciously or sub-consciously. Now the questions which come to mind are, what does this entity which makes people gravitate towards it do, where is it located, and is this attraction to this entity a universal human character.
'The attraction to power is universal'. I am searching my memory if I can find some counter examples. One image which is flashing in my mind is that of yogi vemana, the others being of insane persons. In such a case, apart from those who are truly philosophical or truly insane every human being gravitates towards power and wants a share of it. If he doesnt have it himself he tries to acquire it through a seat of power, by acquisition of money in the modern context, or by surrendering oneself to a person who is vested with this entity.
Why do people gravitate towards it? We want something only if it does good to us and not evil, so we assume that the acquisition of this entity power does good for us. The mere thought of immense power delivered to me makes my mouth water. More the power I possess more is the good for me. Therefore every human sees power as a means of doing good for one self.
As this entity called power appears so powerful in doing me good, I am really unable to stop my mind from searching for the places where I can find it. These are the places which come to my mind; our family in the form of the head of the family(father), the village in the form of sarpanch, the school in the form of a teacher, in the temple in the form of a God, in ashrams in the form of God-men, in our market in the form of money, in ourselves in the form of physical strength/knowledge.
Power in family: Father derives his power only because he has a family, and the absence of a family makes a man powerless. Our family is then the first place where we can find power, but then its limited in quantity. Can it be transferred to children? No, but there is something which can be learnt about power at home. It is more in the nature of how to use power. Therefore proper exercise of power can be learnt at home.
Power at school: The teacher has power over his students. When asked, every student wants to become a teacher once he grows up, whereas the parents laugh at the kids because they feel that the teacher is the most powerless in the village. The bully in the class also has power, but his power is despised by other kids. This is because the bully's power is seen as bringing evil to the other kids. They complain to a higher power, the teacher, and see that he is punished. Any exercise of power in ones personal interest, taking away the good of others will be crushed by a higher power(that of the teacher). Teacher has the power to teach and punish, and the parents willingly surrender the child to that power, because they believe that it does good to the child. We are therefore willing to subject ourselves to power if it does good to us. The power at school imparts some knowledge to the kid.
Power in the village: All the villagers vest power in the Sarpanch for their common good, just as the power over kids is vested with the teacher. I am reminded of the kids show 'power rangers' where each one of the five heros combines his powers to form into a single fighting machine. The powers of all the villagers are combined and vested at a single place, say the panchayat body. This combined power of the village is supposed to check the following:
- the exercise of power by one individual bringing evil to another
- the exercise of power by a minority group bringing evil to the majority rest
- the exercise of power by a majority group bringing evil to the minority rest
This combined power will then have to ensure that there is no interference of the individual/group powers with those of others' powers in the village. It means no one person or group of persons can be benefited at the loss of another. This combined power is now appearing to have twin objectives,
- one of doing good to all the people, and
- the other of ensuring that exercise of individual powers do not bring evil to others.
I am getting a feeling that the first objective is the mother of developmental role the State and the second objective gives rise to justice in the State. An ideal state should ensure that the sum total of all the individual power interactions in the State results in zero evil. Since in reality zero evil is not possible, the combined power can at best nurse the wounds of resultant evils. Is this what we call justice in our States?
Power in the place of worship: It appears from the aforementioned discussion that power exists and is in different forms. If we believe that there is such an entity called power which is expressing in various forms, then there must be the original, purest and unadulterated power reservoir, which is the source of all these powers we see. Now the only one who knows and possesses it is our God ( I am saying 'our' because though God is the same, each one of us has a different concept of God). Therefore we go to a temple/place of worship with the hope that our God gives some of that power to us. Sometimes people really receive it in the form of divine inspiration. God-man is a real-life expression of my God in this world for many people.
In the market: The purpose of a village shandy is exchange of goods representing the various needs of the people. A shandy is the first baby of the village, of human collaboration. The combined power of the village sits and decides on how to equalise apples and oranges. Goods produced reflect the villagers' needs. There should be an exact match of the needs of the villagers and the goods produced in the village.
If our need is satisfied it brings us good. Produced goods satisfy our needs, do us good, therefore possess power. The goods one produces are the power of that person and they are his good. Then the goods he produces must be having some intrinsic power. If we agree that power resides in the goods one produces, then it should reside in all types of goods. The question arises as to what type of power and how much resides in each variety of goods. The combined power of the village sits to decide what type of power resides in the goods. It decides that it is the same type of power which resides in different types of goods, names it money and blesses it with some power borrowed from its own reservoir of combined power. Since the entity called money is given power by the combined power all the villagers now become willing to exchange their goods with this powerful money. Money can be understood as the essence or abstract of the power in the goods/services produced by us. We see a large number of different things in this visible world through our senses and try to arrive at essences of such things in our intellectual world. We see various beautiful flowers in real world and arrive at an abstract concept of beauty in our intellectual world. Other examples are selfishness, courage, passion, etc. But all of them are abstract entities incapable of perfect reproduction in the real world. I see an exception here. No abstraction of any other concept has ever been reproduced in the real world as perfectly as the power that exists in the goods/services. Money is the only known abstract idea which has been brought from the world of ideas to the real world without flaws. We agree that any abstraction is divine. Hence I am compelled to say that money is the only visible God that exists on earth.
When we exchange our goods in the village shandy we get money. Therefore money is one location of power.
In ourselves : The physical strength we posses and the knowledge we have are undisputed sources of power. The villagers cannot combine forces into a combined power of the village unless each individual possesses it with or without his knowledge. Hence all the sources of power in this world arise from out of the individual. The only known powers in this visible world then are that of the self, the combined power of the society, and that of money; the later two originating from the power of self. The power with God is not from our world. It exists in abstraction in our intellect.
Can we therefore say that anything which does good to us is power? We have seen that the power in the real world originates from ourselves. Therefore we are the source of our own good.
Now the question of who commands this combined power. In a democracy its the elected representative. The person in charge of this combined power therefore shall have the same twin objectives of the combined power viz., the common good of the village, and the prevention of interference of powers leading to individual evils. The successful performance of these twin objectives bestows the head of the village with honour. Therefore any selfishness/injustice on part of the village head will leave him with a tag of being 'rich and unjust ' but not 'honourable and just'. The consequences of such selfish or unjust acts by the person commanding the combined power are a subject of some other days write-up.
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