As our country once again witnesses the Dance of Democracy, electing its representatives for another term in the Lok Sabha, one cannot help but wonder whether our representatives truly are a reflection of who we are. Does Sonia Gandhi really represent the poor farmer in Rae Bareli, or is Advani a true representation of the vibrant and cosmopolitan Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar.
Aristotle once said, 'A society is not just a collection of Humans, but is another being, with its own Body and thought, independent from its constituent beings'. I firmly do believe in his words and I trust that who the members of a society choose as their leaders, do not necessarily reflect the characteristics of the society itself. My root assertion is in the fact that nowhere, never does a society really 'chooses' its leaders. Even in the most perfect of democratic societies, leaders evolve, and, to say crudely, are thrust upon the rest of them.
As much as we would like to believe that leaders are 'elected, not selected', I think, we all know that a society never has full, or sometimes even a little control over who will lead them. Leaders are naturally selected. We can even apply Darwin's assertion here. It is more or less a process of natural selection. The men and women, who have the talent of charisma, and the willpower to decide for the masses, are naturally predisposed to lead their fellow people, who have no way but to give in to their natural instincts and follow the 'chosen ones'. Choice rarely, if ever plays a role in the populace selecting their leader.
If one really intends to understand the character of a society, there is no worse a way to do so than examining the character of its leaders. It is like saying that a human being is defined by just his/her brains, and nothing else. We all know that not to be true. To characterize a society, one needs to study the individuals that make it up, and the interactions between them, something which we like to call culture. Culture in a society can be seen as analogous to connective tissue in a human body, an amalgam of behaviour and beliefs that hold the individuals in a society together. I understand that what I have said may be very difficult, even impossible to do, but that is how understanding the character of a society is. Brilliant minds have spent years and decades trying to do so, and are yet to come to a satisfactory answer. And hence, I assert once again, saying that one can understand a society's character simply by studying its chosen leaders, is like saying that one can tell what a person is like, just by looking at the anatomy of his or her brain.
