Author: B. S. RAghavan
Publication: The Hindu
Date: August 17, 2011
URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/b-s-raghavan/article2362727.ece?homepage=true
The exact translation of the Latin aphorism
is "Thus passes the glory of the world". From the 15th Century until
1963, a master of ceremonies leading the papal coronation procession shouted
it three times to impress on the new pope the transitory nature of life and
earthly honours.
Likewise, ahead of the Roman Emperor's spectacular
processions also, a Grand Herald, appointed under the authority of the Emperor
himself, used to march carrying the Imperial Emblem and shouting for everyone
to hear: Memento mori (Remember, you will die). This was to rub into Emperor's
psyche the inescapable reality that sceptre and crown must one day come tumbling
down.
There seems a pressing need to revive those
practices for many present-day rulers in view of the far greater relevance
of those warnings to them. Whether it is a democratic or despotic government
makes no difference to the way those in pedestals of authority and power,
in their insufferable arrogance, conduct themselves towards other mortals,
as if the people count for little, and as if they can go on enjoying for ever
the luxuries in which they wallow and the servility with which they are surrounded.
We see what is happening to Hosni Mubarak
in Egypt, whose autocratic rule lasted 30 years. He has been kept confined
to a narrow cage like an animal, and most probably will be sentenced to death.
Nicolae Ceausescu, who was the despotic President of Romania for 20 years
was dragged, on a Christmas Day, along with his wife Elena, out of his palace
which had beds and bathroom faucets made of gold to a threadbare, snow-filled
courtyard and shot after a 10-minute court martial.
The fate of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was similar.
His pleas before the Supreme Court about the indescribably horrible conditions
in which he was kept in solitary confinement make heart-rending reading.
INSULT TO INTELLIGENCE
But blinded by megalomania, arrogant rulers
do not learn from these parallels. They assume that people are nothing more
than morons and it is possible to fool all of them all the time.
A glaring example of this propensity is the
assertion of Messrs. P.Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid and Ashwin
Kumar that the Delhi Police had acted absolutely independently in the measures
they have taken, including issue of prohibitory orders and taking Anna Hazare
and Arvind Kejriwal into preventive detention to scupper Team Anna's protest
fast demanding a strong Lokpal Bill. In reply to Anna's appeal against the
curbs, even the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, asks him to approach the
Police for redress, saying it is they who had taken the decision.
It is an insult to even a person of the meanest
intelligence to expect him to believe that in matters of such grave and vital
importance, the Delhi Police will act without political guidance from the
highest levels of the Government. In fact, having worked in the Home Ministry
for 10 years, I am sure that every step that has so far been taken would have
had to be at least mentioned to, if not cleared by, the Prime Minister himself.
The second big mistake arrogant rulers commit
is to think that the people are not noticing the outrages they are perpetrating.
Nothing escapes the people's observation and every injustice, every hardship,
every suffering they have undergone at the hands of those in power is kept
stored in their memory. Often seemingly trivial causes trigger people's reprisal:
Eviction of a pastor from his quarters in Romania, or Police brutality against
a vegetable vendor in Egypt.
They may not retaliate immediately and, as
in the case of the French and Russian Revolutions, may even wait for more
than hundred years. But strike they will, and the longer they have been patiently
bearing the rulers' atrocious behaviour, the harsher, and sometimes, the more
savage, the punishment.
History tells us that the people never fail,
at some stage or other, to catch up with rulers who trample upon their rights
and demands and to make them answer for their misdeeds.
