I. J. Singh | New York, NY Posted: 07:49 PM | November 10, 2011

Walking Away From Power

Power is addictive, even more than the best intoxicants that mankind has discovered or invented. We all seem to understand that, yet we can’t ever leave it alone. This isn’t a bottle that we can smash so easily.

History provides some interesting lessons.

Until very recently in the history of civilization, power often emerged from the barrel of a gun. Political institutions were designed, controlled and run by alpha males.

Given the chance, women, too, seem to adapt to alpha-male worldview of strategy and tactics, perhaps because they are so few and their climb in the political hierarchy so fraught. I offer Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi as prime examples. Will things materially change when the disproportionally low representation of women evens out? I sure hope so.

There are very few prominent examples of political leaders who opted to willingly walk away from power at their zenith. King Ashoka, of ancient India, turned Buddhist when his rule over a vast territory was absolutely unchallenged. He was so touched by Buddhist teachings on non-violence he disbanded much of his large and much-feared army.

One could argue that by this action Ashoka weakened the nation so much that invading Muslim hordes had an easy time conquering, ruling and terrorizing India for the next seven centuries. You can add another two centuries to account for the British rule of India.

The world’s political stage offers very few examples that capture our imagination for willingly abdicating power, whether they were unchallenged or not. Ashoka was possibly the most notable politically dominant ruler to voluntarily diminish his power without being challenged by any rival.

In this short but selective list I would inscribe the name of Mikhail Gorbachev in neon lights. Adopting the models of glasnost-perestroika this ruler of the former Soviet Union opened the state’s institutions, knowing full well that the resulting transparency would rock his power. And it did to deadly effect. There is also evidence that his hand was forced and his renunciation of power not quite that freely and voluntarily done. But he understood that his people needed to enter a new world of transparency, accountability and self-governance.

Then I think of George Washington. History tells us that this first president of the United States was immensely popular. He served for two terms and a third was offered to him but he refused, starting a precedent that a president would not serve more than two consecutive terms. His example was dutifully followed by most incoming presidents, except four: Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson and Ulysses Grant tried but did not succeed, and finally Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was elected to four consecutive terms. But after his death Congress passed an amendment that was ratified in 1951 banning such practice.

In this matter, most political leaders are like FDR, they really believe that the country, without them at the helm, would go to the dogs. They forget that the world existed for untold eons before they discovered power and will continue after they are dead - and die they will like everyone else.

Dictatorial tendencies are universal. Is this hubris located in the hormones, driven by testosterone and encoded in human DNA, I do not know. But most, if not all, people have it.

All leaders come to power with loud claims and promises of wanting to dedicate their lives to service of the nation and its people. Then they work unceasingly to destroy any possible rivals and fill their own coffers and those of their families and cronies. Exceptions just don’t exist.

People want to rule others, perhaps because they are no good at ruling themselves. The colonial powers, after all, didn’t exist to serve people but to dominate them for their own ends or benefits.

The world has seen so many such tyrants that an attempt at an accounting of all would take up many fat volumes and still remain incomplete.

Simon Sebag Montefiore recently provided a long but selective listing of the world’s dictators and their fate from Gaius Germanicus Caligula of ancient Rome to Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya. In the modern era we often look at Joseph Stalin of Russia and Mao Zedong of China as poster boys on a list of tyrants. Perhaps we should include Idi Amin of Uganda and even the father and son duo of Hafez et Bashir al-Assad of Syria in this ignominious pantheon. They end usually by violent coups.

It is a rare dictator who can successfully transfer power to his or her progeny.

A list of politicians who love power too well and not too wisely would surely include Jawahar Lal Nehru, free India’s long-serving prime minister, and Russia’s current strongman, Vladimir Putin. I am also tempted to add the late, unlamented Indira Gandhi to the list of these who adored power too much and unwisely, but she still has her loyalists.