By Valson Thampu
Policemen may not know the connection between ‘polis’ (the city) and ‘police. They certainly do not know that the words ‘police’ and ‘polite’ share a common root!
Politicians, likewise. The know not that the word ‘politics’ is derived from ‘polis,’ meaning, city. Politics was, to the Greeks, the art of living together harmoniously in the city! And ‘city’ was the very opposite of ‘jungle.’
We let our police and politicians down by not insisting that historically politeness was what politics and police had in common. (Now the roles of the police and bouncers are becoming interchangeable.) Without politeness, a politician would be an imposter, a policeman a self-contradiction and a citizen, a mere pawn on the chessboard of politics. If politicians have become arrogant and policemen rude or (what is worse) slavish to authority, we too are responsible for it.
But what is politeness? It denoted -in those hoary and happy times- the atmosphere and ritual of the city, of which politicians and policemen were guardians and servants. Greek city states had a supernatural aura about them. A strong sense of right and wrong, of sanctity and taboos, a sense of the inviolability of what we call dharma, sustained the city (polis). Politeness of this sort was the flower of their civilization.
But that is not our idea of politeness! We are more Shakespearean than Sophoclean. I am referring here to Shakespeare’s Lear: the imperious, but silly, politician. His fatal mistake was that he mistook humility for humiliation, loyalty for flattery, and politeness for obsequiousness. The result? He disowned Cordelia, the only sincere one among his daughters. For Goneril and Regan, her elder sisters, politeness was only a mask to be donned and doffed opportunely. They fawned on and flattered the bumptious old man and took him for a right royal ride.
Lear’s plight is the plight of every citizen in a society where politeness is disowned by people, politicians and policemen. The essence of this most powerful tragedy in world literature lies in the riddles of politeness. Politics cannot dodge this core issue. No idea of “good governance” too can, or should want to.
It is necessary, especially now, to insist on the link between ‘politeness’ and ‘patriotism.’ It is because politeness is extirpated from public life and our practice of patriotism – aggression is mistaken for valor and callousness for conviction- that our politicians are venal, and our police force crude and corrupt. We need to instill a sense of refined pride -patriotic pride- in them that they are the sentinels of a great nation and dignified servants of a sovereign people.
Instead, we reduce patriotism to a sound: sonorous and resounding all right, but a mere sound, all the same. At the very least, we need to treat patriotism as a ‘commodity’ in the economic sense of the term. Every commodity has a “use-value” besides an “exchange-value”. What is the use -let us ask candidly- of patriotism for us? What is it that we want to achieve by invoking it? Surely, everyone who wants to strike a blow on behalf of patriotism will concede this to be a relevant question.
Now, here is a shocker for our cavalier patriots. Politeness is the Greek word for patriotism! You cannot be patriotic and impolite in the same breath. Being patriotic is not a matter of breathing fire and brimstone. Patriotism is a sense of responsible, proactive pride about what we, as a people, have achieved: our culture -as it was and as it is. It is, besides, a shared sense of happiness about who we together are.
A true patriot knows that a great nation cannot be sustained with small minds. Service is politeness in action. But we reduce politeness to touching the feet of power-brokers and wheeler dealers (paav pakad). Those who do so, expect a similar courtesy from others, who are at their mercy. A policeman is rude to you because he has been reduced to a slave by politicians and bureaucrats. It is not his rudeness and crudity to you that you should mind. It is the humiliation he suffers routinely that you should lament.
The plight of most citizens, vis-à-vis politicians is similar to that of culprits before policemen, which is similar the plight of politicians vis-à-vis citizens at the time of elections. (Thank you, democracy). We have either watched in apathy the emergence of a crude political culture or winked at it in unconscionable connivance.
A patriotism of politeness is the urgent remedy. I am a patriot. I love my country. To me, serving is the true form of patriotism. What I need is the freedom to express and embody my patriotism meaningfully. Come, let us sit across the table, discuss and enlighten each other. The willingness to listen to each other is, after all, the irreducible desideratum alike of politeness and patriotism.
(Valson Thampu is the immediate past principal of St Stephen’s College, Delhi)