The other day a friend of mine asked me about a particular minister. Surprised by my lack of interest in the conversation, he tried to tell me why I should know the minister.
“If he makes one phone call, you and I will lose our jobs,” he explained.
“Well, if he has a track record of firing people for not knowing him, I must know him. But if he had such a track record, I would have already known him.”
Why do people fear someone with power? Fear is a natural survival instinct. We avoid unnecessary confrontations and walk away when the incentives to stand our ground are low or nonexistent. This may sometimes embolden people with power.
A more interesting question, however, is why a minister with the power to fire people does not exercise it regularly. Is he not competent enough? No. Most competent people know power is like “share capital,” given to someone. Investors lend power to someone expecting returns. If the investors lose trust and decide to pull out, the power will vanish into thin air. That is how governments fall.
People often exhibit irrational fear of power because they do not understand how it actually works. It is a misconception that we adopted democracy to get power into our hands. Power was never in the hands of kings, nor does democracy give back power to people.
The real sources of power are ideas. That is why even kings in old times feared rishis. It is again a misconception that rishis had some magical power to curse people. No. They had ideas powerful enough to bring down kings. That is exactly what Chanakya did to the arrogant emperor of Magadha.
When a leader is elected to a position of power, it simply means people have invested in his or her ideas. Nothing more. One does not even need to hold a position to exercise power. Soros and Musk hold power to change governments because of their ideas. No, it is not because of their money (ideas generate money anyway).
If you ask me to name 10 most powerful people of India post 1990, I would include P. Sainath without hesitation. His ideas on farmer suicides served as the foundation for many farmer-centric political movements. Even the mighty BJP with an absolute majority in the parliament surrendered to farmer groups.
The Waqf bill became a law a few days back. The lion’s share of credit should be given to Anand Ranganathan for writing a book and incessantly highlighting the issue of misutilization power given to the Waqf board in TV debates.
Pursue knowledge. Power without knowledge is a mirage. You think you have it, but actually you don't.
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