How personality cults derail democracy
This article examines Jawaharlal Nehru's 1937 essay 'The Rashtrapati,' in which he warned against the dangers of personality cults in a democracy. It argues that the elevation of leaders into messianic figures threatens democratic health by encouraging citizens to surrender their civic responsibilities.
I n 1937, as the country stood poised between colonial subjugation and the uncertain promise of freedom, an essay appeared in The Modern Review , titled ‘The Rashtrapati’ and was signed, cryptically, “Chanakya.” Its author, as we know now, was Jawaharlal Nehru, but the reader at that time, was unaware of this. The piece remains one of the strangest acts of political self-examination in modern history: a leader at the height of his popularity writing anonymously about the dangers that his own popularity posed to the country.
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