I
am still and will continue to be intrigued and at times fascinated by the
infamous Roman Emperor Nero’s anecdote. By some accounts, Nero ran away to
Macedonia with his lady love Claudia Acte, a former slave, against the wishes
of his aggressive, cunning and ruthless mother Agrippina, after he was declared
a successor to the throne. However, an unwilling and reluctant Nero was crowned
the Emperor, at the tender age of 17, after the untimely death of Emperor
Claudius in 54AD. Post succession, Nero often made rulings that pleased the
lower class and was criticized as being obsessed with being popular.
Nevertheless, over time, Nero faced a number of rebellions and power struggles
that made him insecure, bitter, resentful and paranoid. Nero progressively
seized more political power through tyranny, freeing himself of his advisers
and eliminating rivals to the throne to consolidate his
power and authoritarianism. The notable of his political adversaries
eliminated by him included, his own mother Agrippina along with his teacher and
mentor Seneca, close advisor Burrus, apart from his other step brothers and
dissenting senators. Rightfully, over the 14 years of his rule, disenchantment
among the ruling elite and masses and rebellion in his armed forces alarmingly
grew, which forced Nero to commit suicide at the age of 30 in the year 68 AD.
Unfortunately, all martyred rulers hustled to
power right from Nero failed to realize their follies when it mattered. Moreover, the
life history of late Indira Gandhi is another great example of an honest
individual ruined by unrestricted political power.
Jayalalitha of
Tamil Nadu (popularly called AMMA), Mayawati of Uttar Pradesh (popularly called
BEHENJI) and Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal (popularly called DID) have
gate-crashed into the male club of Indian regional politics, absolutely by
their own choice and were readily embraced by the regional masses as the most
viable alternative to those in power in their respective states. Regrettably, they had to endure constant insults and veiled wounds
from their respective political adversaries since their opponents could not
match the political intelligence, energy and allure of the charismatic ladies
who rammed in to their political bastions.
Fortunately, all the three women politicians
were given huge mandate by masses in their respective states with great
anticipation of betterment and optimism. People overly mandated them and
hustled them to power expecting them to become CRUSADERS against the evils and
deeds of the previous governments that decelerated their progress and wellbeing.
On the contrary, they all failed to realize that the fighter in them must
cease to exist once the election battles are won, but instead continued to be
relentless fighters against their political adversaries and critics. Smitten by power and delimited by sycophants all-round, their fighting
tendencies metamorphosed themselves in to more furious, bitter, arrogant, constantly suspicious, insecure, intolerant and dictatorial.
The flaunting of authority, never ending
loyalty tests to their loyalists, misappropriation of state finances, personal
exuberance to make themselves immortal in the eyes of common man (ala, statues
by Mayawati) and wielding of a heavy hand of the state and police against the
political adversaries and dissenters alienated loyalists, friends, media,
intelligentsia and masses alike and thus made them perceive conspiracies in
anything negative and every reversal they had to endure during their time in
power. Precisely, this is what Amma and Behenji had experienced in their
earlier terms and is currently happening to Didi. Amma and Behenji became
imperious, lonely and ill-advised due to desertions by intelligentsia as well
as loyalists and were trapped in a state of siege by highly self-centered
sycophants and had to chew the dust during the subsequent provincial elections.
Amma, after being out of power for a decade,
seemed to have settled well in her new term of office due to the lessons learnt
from the past, justifying the rightful mandate against the decade long
limitlessly corrupt Karunanidhi regime.
Conversely, Didi seems to be treading the
dangerous tyrannical path by installing fear in the masses, being arbitrary,
hot-tempered, arrogant and showing little sensitivity and lack of discretion
when it comes to atrocities on women and assaults on intelligentsia by
political goons. The public outcry, of late, by the disgusted and angered
citizens along the media is a testimony of her misrule and highlights the
immediate need to completely change her style of functioning.
Although we empathize with Didi concerning
the unhealed wounds of those long years of persecution by the previous regimes,
she shall realize at once, that her wounds shall be healed and her pain turned
to pleasure by keeping her political detractors away from power as long as
she can. However, this can be a reality only if, she can relentlessly work
for the public causes as well as pragmatically crusade against the misdeeds of
the previous government and build enormous warmth and faith in the masses.
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