|
|
|
|
Articles: Devotion | Birth of democracy Part II
- Prof. Narasimham Brahmandam
| |
Birth of democracy (Part II)
Kalanemi drew a long breath, surveyed the audience for a while and in slow but heavy words began to unfurl his strategy. “Go to the people. Dine with them. Drink with them. Mix with them. And when you find them ready to repose faith in you, tell them, ‘Look, fellowmen, we are toiling and sweating to produce. But the King takes away a lion’s share of it without as much as lifting a spade or breaking a clod. We live in huts; he lives in palaces. We walk bare footed; he rides in a chariot. We hardly get a cereal meal a day; he eats sweets and savories in every meal. We have only a loin cloth; he wears gold-bordered clothes. We can hardly afford a wife; he takes any number of damsels into his harem. And all this at our cost! When another king strikes, he remains safe in the fort while we rush forward to face the arrows. Why do we keep this parasite growing fat on our sweat and blood? Down with the king! Let us govern ourselves. We shall have a government of the people, for the people, by the people.’
“ It is more easily said than done,” objected Gorged Eyes. “You don’t know he strength of loyalty that these men have for their King. It is only second to what they have for God. Many of them believe that a king is God himself”
“You have to persevere.” Said Kalanemi. “You give it a name, ‘democracy’ so that they can repeat it like a mantra, sing about it, write poems and songs, short stories, novels and plays about it. Tell them it is the latest fashion. Make it an inviolable dictum. In the end, people should feel that it is a sacrilege to speak against it. You are sure to succeed.”
Kalanemi closed his eyes and began o describe the vision he obviously was seeing. “I can see crowds running to the palaces with swords, spears and axes. I can see them killing everyone who come across their way. Streams of blood are flowing down the stairs of palaces. They are tired of killing. They are inventing machines to cut off heads of their fellowmen who dared to say a kind word about the king, queen, princes or courtiers. Everyone is ceaselessly yelling out, ‘Down with the king and kingship’ lest some one should mistake them to be loyalists and kill them.” He opened his eyes and said, “You will succeed. Join the mobs. While they kill, you can torture, plunder and rape. You will enjoy to your heart’s content.”
“But,” persisted Gorged Eyes, “when the din dies down, they are sure to put another fellow on the throne. Loyalism is a human trait. How do we stop it?” “They will not do it now” said Kalanemi, “because they have worked themselves up into a frenzy against kingship. They now have wondrous visions of governing themselves. It is time to teach them how to govern themselves.”
“How can all of them Govern?” asked Pot Belly (Lambodara). “ Your opportunity lies just there” smiled Kalanemi. “Since everybody cannot govern, ask them to choose some to do the governing. Tell them ‘when our men rule, it is as good as ruling ourselves’. They will be easily convinced.” “Where is our opportunity here?” protested Short hands (Hrasva hasta), “If they start to govern themselves, they would, probably do better than the kings!”
“They sure would,” said Kalanemi, “if you are foolish enough to let them do it. But remember that while you can distinguish them from yourselves, they cannot make you out from them!” He chuckled into a laugh that sounded like sound of little crackers. He surveyed the audience to assess what impact he had made on them. It was obvious that his whole talk was very much above their heads and only a few seemed to have comprehended what the great demon said. He, therefore, suggested that they broke for lunch and meet again after some time.
When they reassembled after lunch, there were many brighter faces amongst them. Kalanemi started on a more confident note. “You have heard of Chanukya, have you? He was the fellow who wrote for the use of kings a treatise on how people should be governed. It is a code that men have come to obey as if it were god’s own code. If you give them something to substitute it with, they will cling to it as a gospel. You have to give them a code for a kingless government. Give it a name, say, the ‘constitution’. Call for a congregation of chosen persons to write it. See to it that as many of you as possible and a few foolish men are called to the congregation. Use all your tact and acumen in writing this constitution. It should appear very good intentioned; but at the same time, it should give you the widest opportunity to have your fun.”
At this stage, Kalanemi noticed that the demons were looking at each other, obviously trying to figure out what the great one was trying to convey.
“Humans are fond of the word ‘justice’” he went on, ”by which they mean that a weak and imbecile fellow should get what the mighty one gets with great effort, by merely going before a bunch of judges. In fact, their reverence to gods is only because the gods have promised to give them what they ask for without their having to take any pains except singing songs in their praise. Therefore, the constitution should refer to justice in every possible clause. However, it should leave sufficient loopholes to keep the demon law supreme in practice.”
Even after this explanation, Hairy Body (Romaanga) stood up to say, “You were saying that the people’s government gives us opportunity to torture people; what has this constitution to do with that?”
Kalanemi saw the need t take them up step by step. He said, “According to the sacred constitution that you have written, the people have to choose representatives at the rate of one for every lakh or ten lakhs of persons by a process called voting. Once these representatives are chosen, the work of the people is over. The actual rulers will be the representatives who will form the ruling class. Your ingenuity lies in getting elected into the ruling class. The process is simple. Some of you will offer to be the representatives. They are called candidates. Their names will be listed on pieces of paper. Each person (above a prescribed arbitrary age) will given one piece of this paper, which is called a vote. He puts a mark against the name of the candidate of his choice and puts it in a locked box through a slit. At the end of the voting, the number of votes in favour of each candidate will be counted. And he who has polled the largest number is elected a their representative.
“But,” intercepted Elephant Ears (Gajakarna), “he need not necessarily be the choice of the majority?” “Need not” affirmed Kalanemi. “Suppose that four candidates contested in a constituency of one lakh voters. Let us assume half of them turned up for voting. Let us say, they polled 15, 13, 12 and 10 thousand votes respectively. The person polling 15 thousand becomes the ‘representative’ of all the 1 lakh of voters, notwithstanding the fact that 85 thousand voters either did not vote for him or were indifferent to him. That is the constitution. That is the loophole, which permits a candidate to win even though he may not be popular. You have to use it to your advantage”
“The representatives themselves will be many. How can all of them rule?” asked Short fingers. “The elected representatives will choose one from amongst them as a supreme leader. He really would substitute the king. The rest of you would be his councilors,” said Kalanemi. “I am afraid,” said Hairy Body, “even if the supreme leader is one of us, he would soon look upon himself as the king and treat the rest of us as his slaves!” “And, further, we should like to have our chance too” added Long Neck (Diirgha Griiva). “That is not a problem. You can put it in the constitution that new representatives shall be chosen every few years. The period shall be long enough to torture the people to your heart’s content and short enough to give the rest of us our turn” suggested Gorged Eyes.
Red eyes raised a doubt, “If the elected ones make life miserable for the people, do you think that the people would again choose us for the next term? They may probably choose their own men!” He somehow felt that Kalanemi was over simplifying the matter.
“That” agreed Kalanemi, “is a likely prospect.” He sat motionless for a long time absorbed in deep thought. He drew a deep breath and said, “Split yourselves into two or three parties. The parties shall pretend to oppose each other. Each party will set up its own demon as a candidate from each unit. The people will have chosen one of them. When the election is over, the party with largest number of elected ones shall become the ruling party and the other party or parties shall be the opposition parties for that term. It is the party that rules. The individual, by himself, has no status unless he is a member of one party or the other. Even if a few men are elected by mistake, they will not be heard unless they join one of our parties. Since both the ruling and opposition party are ours, it matters little who becomes the ruling party. Further, you can always change from one party to another. Once you are elected, you are masters of yourselves and the people can do nothing to you” “There seems to be another advantage.” observed Gorged Eyes, “If the people are unhappy with party A, next time they choose party B. When they are unhappy with them too, they will resign themselves to their fate and become indifferent about whom they elect.”
“ Is there no possibility” enquired Short Ears, “that the men form their own party, bundle us up and consign us to the dust bin?” “Not likely” said Kalanemi, “If you practise your hypocrisy well enough, they may not be able to tell you from them. They will think you are men and choose you. Further, during these two terms that you will have ruled, you will understand the techniques of getting elected. You will have established many of our demons as our permanent props in the guise of traders, builders, wine sellers, goondas and so on. They will enlist nonexistent persons in the list of voters, buy votes, and force people to vote for you by threat and so on in return for our unproclaimed protection and concessions to them. Many of us also get trained in hypocrisy, bribery, division and threat – the four traditional means of getting things done. If the humans do get into this field, they will be latecomers, novices and idealists who cannot catch up with us and drop off sooner than later.
(to be continued)
| Be first to comment on this Article!
| |
|
|
|
 |
| Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
| Advertisements |
|
