The Hindu Business Line : Leaders in search of readers

“Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards. If you disgrace yourself you can always write a book”, said Ronald Reagan. Going by the speed with which our leaders write books, for example, Jaswant Singh (A Call to Honour In The Service Of India), L. K. Advani (My Country, My Life) and so on, it appears that they have already decided that either they are not successful or they may fulfil the self-prophecy of becoming bad losers.

Nowadays, in Britain too, it has become a fashion for political bigwigs to treat other leaders as rivals and write books to literally throw them at each other.

It is reported that the increasingly unpopular Gordon Brown is busy publishing an entire trilogy. It represents, it is believed, the ultimate search of leaders in search of readers. In most parts of the world, politicians appear to be engaged in writing in such a hurry that they may not find time to read what they themselves write.

The politicians’ psychology of writing books is rather curious. Everyone knows that any active politician who has to be in public eye, engaging himself in organising protest rallies or settling quarrels among regional satraps, if he is outside the government or employed in high office if he is in the government, cannot write unless he employs a ghost writer.

Or else, he must be shirking more important duties to satisfy his egoistical desire to “lie vertically in a library” as a wisecrack remarked.

Yet, politicians of all hues believe in running towards a publisher for penning what they consider grist to the political mill, where gossip from the past is disguised as profound insight and their pious wishes as oracular predictions for the future, all to improve their public standing.

Secure against sabotage

One wonders how is it that book writing is still popular with politicians when, in this Internet age, we have the ubiquitous YouTube, podcasts, blogs, comments and so on. The fact is, once written, the book is secure against sabotage.

However, a video posting from a politician can rapidly be altered into its satirical opposite; a blog may travel endlessly in cyberspace carrying stinging tails of contrary comments and refutations.

A book, however, keeps its content to itself, although they may not sell beyond the first print. Politicians in power have the added advantage of ensuring that every government library purchases the books only to gather dust. One can surely find all these books, not even taken on stock, in the greatly neglected National Library in Kolkata.

Leaders are not merely content with writing books. They organise release functions inviting their peers and rivals, most of whom have no intention of reading the book on the day of the function or later and yet give them a photo-op to preen their intellectual prowess. If only our prime minister, president or vice-president and other leaders who “release” these books every other day are serious about reading them, we the citizens may be left alone and perhaps be better off, as they may not find time to do anything else.

Even in a semi-literate country such as India, where politicians continuously rant about the poor levels of education, it is gratifying to see that they entertain the thought that nothing adds glitter to their resume like a book.

(The author is former Member, Ordnance Factories Board.)

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