Sycophancy has been decried by many a journalist in the modern democratic age. They have not realized that it is an art inborn in human nature. The little child, as soon as he starts speaking, starts picking up the art for petty gains. It throws a smile at you to get a toffee. A little later it (now he) praises you, kisses you to secure small favours. None checks him or her from growing as a perfect cultured flatterer. The more perfect he is the greater success he has in his life. For a woman it is the only path to salvation.
History has glaring examples of great Sycophants who exercised great command in their own days. Greatest of the kings had courts full of sycophants who in turn had smaller ones moving round them like satellites. They would all bow before one or the other and maintain their position through magnanimity showered over others. They would bow not just for a pittance but would maintain hierarchic balance in the kingdom. A Birbal was not just a flunky. He would even outwit the king himself.
Sycophancy is not a monopoly of India or of Lucknow, the biggest centre of cultured flatterers. It is a universal art practised throughout the world. The sycophant has been given different names in different ages. The Clown of Shakespeare has been as great a sycophant as the ‘Vidushak’ of Sanskrit literature. He enjoyed the progative of pardon from the king for whatever he said. Fool was the greatest of them who would offer King Lear two hollow crowns of an egg mocking at his folly of dividing his kingdom into two parts and showering them on his daughters for which he had to lead his life in the forest.
In the communist regimes too it was the sycophant who gained ground while the poor Nobel Prize winners were banished to concentration camps. The sycophants flourished and became President and Chief Ministers in India. They have lost the magnanimity of the olden days and have acquired snobbishness of the modern age. Even till the age of Hitler they had an aura of loyalty around them when the three great sycophants of the Fuehrer died with him.
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The modern sycophants in India have belied the very essence of sycophancy. A Barua or a Dhawan would vie with the great Greek sycophant Aristotle. While Aristotle reared Alexander to be a great king these modern sycophants who claimed ‘Indira is India, India is Indira’ betrayed their mistress when she fell on bad days. They have debased the art of course. But sycophancy will not lose heart and will survive till humanity survives.