What makes a good politician ?

By Ranjan Yumnam *

Can there be a 'good politician'? Wait a second. Does the phrase seem to be an oxymoron that tickles your jugular vein or one that makes your blood boil? Politicians should not necessarily evoke these kind of strong emotions in us. There exist good politicians who are visionaries, nation builders and statesmen who have left behind extraordinary legacy. The only hitch is that we have so few of them. And in Manipur context, trying to find one good politician is like searching for a needle in the haystack. Sometimes you won't even be able to find enough haystacks to begin with!

That sets me pondering why the tribe of good politicians is fast dwindling and becoming an endangered species. The answer is simple. Conscientious and qualified people seldom enter politics, and even if they do, public shoo them away during the elections. The men of the world, the contractors, the moneyed and the corrupt of dubious credentials are the ones who will be garlanded atop garish trucks when the results of the elections are announced. And as the system goes, these dimwits will take control of our future and drag it back to the Middle Ages.

No less of the blame should be borne by the public. The public in general are jokers and opportunistic maggots. They will pay lip service on choosing the best people as their leaders. But in elections after elections, the only times, when they have the real power to rectify the situation, they have repeatedly sided with the wrong guys, seduced by their ingenious tricks such as cash-for-votes and other clever turn-ons. It reminds me of the self-destructive propensity of innocent girls from good families who often fall head-over-heels for bad boys—a fact ingrained in the popular cultural lore that has given many parents sleepless nights.

Maybe it's the freakonomics at play. People vote for the person who they think will give them tangible personal benefits in the near future instead of someone who offers promises of collective good like better roads, electricity, etc in an unknown future that seems a far-fetched possibility. Now throw in some recent findings of human psychology, and then I think we have a deadly cocktail formula of what drives the voters' behaviors during the elections.

Studies have shown that people are more likely to opt for instant gratification then defer it for bigger satisfaction in the future. This is irrational but it's true. We prefer spending money on useless stuff now that won't improve the quality of our lives to saving it for a significant project later or rainy days.

The same pattern of this irrational human behavior is manifested during elections. The short-term benefit of getting some paltry cash or other inducements in exchange for your vote is stupid, or naïve at best. By overemphasizing on instant and momentary gains, we have let the election process become a competition in flexing money and muscle power at the expense of real issues that need to be deliberated.

In the prevailing political culture, there are no debates, no demonstration of mastery over key issues by the candidates on TV or public rallies. Instead, the political discourse is dominated by inane personal attacks/counter attacks mounted by political rivals against one another that have little connection with issues of public importance.

It is baffling then why men of intellect and great vision hardly reach the political pinnacle and contribute to the betterment of the society while former jailbirds easily win people's hearts and elections. Let me explain this dichotomy by using an analogy.

The analogy is: a politician is like a newspaper. The most popular newspapers with the largest circulation are most often cheap and shallow newspapers peddling dribble. The opposite is true of high-brow newspapers that purvey serious and quality journalism. That is why The Times of India beats The Hindu by a large margin in terms of readership, and in America, USA Today dwarfs the most respected newspaper on earth, The New York Times.

Respectability doesn't guarantee readership and a large readership is also not a marker of quality. In fact, the correlation between quality and popularity (in readership) is very slim. What explains for this counter-intuitive trend?

Here's why. Popular newspapers publish gossip, news and images intended for shock or sexual titillation, rumours and other sensational content in order to hook as many readers as possible—from the sweepers in the streets to the nubile somethings in colleges, the lowest common denominator. Most of what they print is trash.

Politicians share this unique paradox of popularity vs. respectability. People adore the rogue MLA who can create spectacular nuisance, emote theatrics and extract concessions from the Government for his workers. The intellectual politician may be highly respected, but when it comes to the dirty wheeling and dealing of the politics, he is held back by his own status/sense of ethics and therefore has fewer followers like The New York Times.

To be likeable, politicians are expected to think like the ordinary electorate and serve their short term interests, and even break bread with the crazy voters who hand out vigilante justice by setting fire to houses of alleged criminals in front of TV cameras, which is so common nowadays. No wonder, the intellectual politician ends up being a misfit.

The fact that thoughtful politicians do not connect well with the ordinary voters should not in any way lead to the premature conclusion that we should not give political space to them. In an ideal democracy, electorates should delegate to the elected leaders certain issues which are beyond their comprehension but which must be addressed on their behalf. The expert is better positioned to devise policies and programmes which the public will never be able to appreciate before their impact is felt.

"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them," Steve Jobs famously said of his iconic Apple devices. Steve Jobs didn't involve focus groups to create iMac, iPhone and Ipad because the products he wanted to design were beyond what a focus group would ever visualize. They are category defining products never imagined before by any other companies, much less by a rag tag focus group.

The intellectual politician should be the political variant of Steve Jobs. He should listen to the voices of the ordinary people but he should not be completely swayed by them. He should draw upon his expertise and superior faculty and show, as Steve Jobs did with his cool gadgets, what public projects, legislation and positions on key issues would be most beneficial for them in the long run and feasible for the short term.

But at the end of the day, the choice is whether to be a good politician or a popular politician. The Hindu or the Mumbai Mirror?

Too often, we have seen good knowledgeable politician degenerating into a typical neta. Take Barack Obama, President of America. He was the quintessential politician who had all: a multicultural background, a law degree, a clean personal life, teaching experience and an exceptional oratorical skill. He was the man America hoped will change the world after Bush messed it up with wars. Four years into his presidency, he is now seen among the weakest and mediocre presidents America has had.

What really happened to Obama? My guess is that he has abandoned his initial idealism for the sake of winning the second term. He has become subservient to his constituencies, and has not been able to assert the agenda close to his heart.

The lesson to be learnt is that you can't be both popular and good in politics. You have to choose one. To be good, one has to take unpopular decisions and not succumb to the short term wishes of the people. And most importantly, one should not seek re-election that inevitably compels the person to shift focus from the real political mission to mollycoddling the voters to get their support.

If you need an icon for a good politician, Nelson Mandela is the one. He could be the president of South Africa as long as he wants, but he ditched it after holding the office for the first term.

Professors, thinkers and the intellectuals. Listen up. If you want to change Manipur, come out and contest elections and serve for five years as a good politician. Just for one term. Hell, we don't want to see you again. And we don't want you to be popular. We won't demand jobs for ourselves and relatives, contract works or freebies. Just give us our roads, electricity, water, functional hospitals, schools and colleges.

And a good night sleep everyday.



(Views expressed are personal and do not represent official position)

Ranjan Yumnam

* Ranjan Yumnam, presently an MCS probationer, is a frequent contributor to e-pao.net. He can be contacted at ranjanyumnam(at)gmail(dot)com. This article was posted on January 04, 2012.