Skip to main content

Good Governance


Plato imagined a philosopher king for his Republic. The ideal state, according to the philosopher, ensures the maximum possible happiness for all its citizens. All citizens. Not a particular community. Such a state can only be brought into being by a ruler who is also a philosopher. “Until philosophers are kings,” Plato wrote, “or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy … cities will never have rest from their evils.”

Some 19 centuries after Plato, Thomas More imagined an ideal country called Utopia which would have no king at all. Why would one individual – or a few individuals like in today’s parliamentary system – set up himself above all other citizens? More was highly displeased with what his King, Henry VIII, did with his political power. Henry was a selfish and ruthless man who used his power as a king for self-aggrandisement. Too many citizens lost their lives so that Henry could enjoy the best of everything including women. More was also a victim. Before More was executed at Henry’s order, he gave us his ideas about Utopia.

More’s Utopia does not rely much on money as most governments do. Look at the way prices are rising in today’s India. Look at the way taxes are added almost on a daily basis to the common man’s backbreaking burdens. This is just the opposite of what More imagined for his Utopia. The very idea of money corrupts governments and destroys justice and happiness in society, More argued. Wealth does not make people happy; it makes them greedy and greedier. You can see living proofs today for that. The billionaires are never satisfied with the amounts they have piled up in banks here and abroad, with money that’s white and black and in all possible colours. The moment you create a system that is founded on wealth and wealth-creation as primary virtues, you are paving the way for injustice, misery, and ultimately, crime. That is More’s argument.

People aren’t too bad. In fact, there is much goodness in people’s hearts. It is the system that reshapes the hearts. If people are forced to live in a system which gives all importance to wealth and little to cooperation and compassion, people will naturally lose the goodness in their hearts. What India is doing today is worse than that. It is openly supporting animosity between communities of people.

Good governance should start with bringing a spirit of camaraderie among citizens. Simple human goodness should be the foundation of the system even if that sounds too idealistic. Ideals are never fully practical. But discarding them just because they are not completely practical is like throwing away the baby with the bathwater. Creating a system founded on hatred is going to the other extreme of replacing the baby with demons.

People like to cooperate and help each other, as Rutger Bregman shows in his book Humankind. But without the support of the socio-political system they won’t be able to help and cooperate. You can make people hate one another, compete with one another, debilitate one another, more easily than create a system which encourages mutual help and cooperation. Which is better? You know the answer. Creating that better one calls for good governance. 


PS. I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 

Previous Post: Forest Eats Forest

Tomorrow: Humpty Dumpty’s Hats

 

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanApril 8, 2022 at 6:04 AM

    Hari Om
    In response to one of my own recent posts which highlighted that Love was more challenging to maintain than hatred, some wrote that they thought hate was too exhausting and Love was always easier... but they were mistaking Love referred in that post as being love of the normal sort one has for a pet or one's family. And let us face it, even that love is tested and hatred and anger so easily arise. Yes, hate is exhausting but it is also the emotion that is easiest to access. Unscrupulous leaders know exactly how to access and leverage that to their personal benefit and remove all benefit from the whole community that Love would bring. Another worthy post! YAM xx
    G=Guru

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 8, 2022 at 9:32 AM

      It's quite surprising that many - too many - Indians fail to understand this truth about hatred. This thing called nationalist pride is a degenerating drug and so too many are affected by its perversions.

      Delete
  2. Pandian RamaiahApril 8, 2022 at 6:53 AM

    Can philosophy of life and philosophy of politics gel together? No. Democrats (of all parties, all countries) will try to add more fuel to the fire, and catch fish in muddy waters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 8, 2022 at 9:35 AM

      Philosophy and politics can merge harmoniously as it did in Nehru. Now we have hard core criminals in Parliament. So we get crimes instead of governance.

      Delete
  3. (in)sane mindApril 8, 2022 at 9:56 AM

    I agree with every point you made.

    ReplyDelete
  4. vanderloostApril 8, 2022 at 10:04 AM

    Absolutely

    ReplyDelete
  5. Afshan ShaikApril 8, 2022 at 4:41 PM

    Nodding at every word. Sad state of affairs. I hope people who hav right senses would easily know!

    Dropping by from a to z http://afshan-shaik.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  6. SuchitaApril 10, 2022 at 12:08 PM

    Hatred is easy because that's what we're used to. The blueprint for that already exists. Maybe cooperation feels idealistic because we don't have a blueprint for it...yet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 10, 2022 at 1:37 PM

      I'm looking forward to an evolutionary mutation. Nothing else seems to work.

      Delete
  7. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuApril 10, 2022 at 10:01 PM

    Hatred is being manufactured and it has become so very frequent that any good occasion of religious nature has become an event of communal hatred. This is very scary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 11, 2022 at 5:15 AM

      The only solution is people becoming aware of the menace and refusing to play along with politicians.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more