Skip to main content

Politics and Poetry


Poetry begins where science ends. “What flower is that over there?” The gardener will answer, “A lily.” That’s a plain factual statement. The botanist will tell you that the flower belongs to the order of Hexandria monogynia. That is science. Edmund Spenser says, “It is the lady of the garden.” Spenser is a poet. Ben Jonson, another poet, calls it “the plant and flower of light.” Jesus asked his followers to take a lesson from the lily: “They toil not, nor do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." That is spirituality.

There is poetry in spirituality. In fact, poetry is another form of spirituality. A few weeks back, I wrote in this very same space that “If [poet] Keats cared to establish a religion, its deity would have been Beauty.” When Jesus equated himself (god) with Truth, Keats equated Beauty with Truth. Wordsworth found similar truth and sanctity in Nature. Isn’t every genuine poet on a spiritual quest?

But poetic truths are not scientific truths. Science sees hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water. The poet listens to the music of the water laughing down a mountain slope. The poet perceives a different truth. Poetic truths begin where the molecules stop.

What about politics? There is as much in common between politics and poetry as between kerosene and sugar though both kerosene and sugar have in them carbon and hydrogen molecules. Politicians and poets are both human beings. But the similarity quite ends there.

Politics is about power. About manipulations. Distortions. Invasions. Aggressions. The base side of humanity. And ubiquitous taxes.

Poetry is about truth. Beauty. Imagination. Intuition. Contemplation. The refined side of humanity.

If a politician can nurture a poet within, it will do him and his country much good. The bigot in Vajpayee was held under control by the poetry in his heart. The dominant politicians in today’s India will do a lot better with a little poetry in their hearts.

Poetry makes better human beings than religions and gods do. You will find criminals and terrorists among religious believers, not among poets. Can we inject some poetry in the veins of our political leaders?  

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 419: Poetry is the language of the heart? Do you think making poetry-reading compulsory for our politicians can make the country a little better place? #PoetryInPolitics

 

 

 

Comments

  1. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuAugust 21, 2022 at 10:36 AM

    What a beautiful & innovative way to reform Political scenario! Wish poetry helps such power hungry brains ! I absolutely enjoyed reading it 😊

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 21, 2022 at 11:28 AM

      "The poet and politician in me are often locked in a duel and both win and lose occasionally," Vajpayee once said. I know for certain that the poet in him did him much good.

      Delete
  2. Yamini MacLeanAugust 21, 2022 at 3:39 PM

    Hari OM
    I am certain that many politicians read (and may even scribble) poetry... the problem lies in how they chose to interpret what they read... and always with a view to how it justifies their stance rather than moderates it. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 21, 2022 at 4:54 PM

      Probably yes. I'm inclined towards scepticism, however. Anyone who has poetry in heart cannot be a politician - not a successful one - in today's world - my hypothesis.

      Delete
  3. vanderloostAugust 23, 2022 at 6:32 PM

    Don't think so. Politician will misuse poetry for his own power goals and poets will make worst politicians.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 23, 2022 at 9:16 PM

      Yeah, like the devil quoting the scriptures. But what I think is if we can get poetry into the genes of the politicians...

      Delete
  4. vanderloostAugust 25, 2022 at 7:52 AM

    Yes. But very unlikely amalgamation

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousOctober 13, 2022 at 1:09 PM

    Thank you for writing this, Sir. Loved this-//Poetry is about truth. Beauty. Imagination. Intuition. Contemplation. The refined side of humanity.// This comes as a reminder of why I started a poetry website in the first place. I think I have moved away slightly from my original notion while trying to understand the different aspects of the blogging world. I have had my fair share of learning. It's high time I get back to work on what I had envisioned. Once again, thank you so much for penning this. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Dharma and Destiny

  Illustration by Copilot Designer Unwavering adherence to dharma causes much suffering in the Ramayana . Dharma can mean duty, righteousness, and moral order. There are many characters in the Ramayana who stick to their dharma as best as they can and cause much pain to themselves as well as others. Dasharatha sees it as his duty as a ruler (raja-dharma) to uphold truth and justice and hence has to fulfil the promise he made to Kaikeyi and send Rama into exile in spite of the anguish it causes him and many others. Rama accepts the order following his dharma as an obedient son. Sita follows her dharma as a wife and enters the forest along with her husband. The brotherly dharma of Lakshmana makes him leave his own wife and escort Rama and Sita. It’s all not that simple, however. Which dharma makes Rama suspect Sita’s purity, later in Lanka? Which dharma makes him succumb to a societal expectation instead of upholding his personal integrity, still later in Ayodhya? “You were car...
25 comments
Read more