Short essay on Personality Cult

Personality cult indicates the same concept as hero-worship— excessive admiration of great men or of anybody. Who is a hero and who is not? This is, in essence, a matter of personal and individual inclination and choice.

Every man, it is said, is a hero and an oracle to somebody, and to that person whatever he (or she) says has an enhanced value. But, by and large, heroes are outstanding personalities in some field who are widely admired by people for their great qualities, their political stature and attainments, for instance.

It is not birth but achievement that makes a hero. The gates are thus wide open for everyone to attain the requisite heights. Browning rightly said in “Aurora Leigh” that all actual heroes are essentially men, and all men possible heroes. When they become heroes, there is no dearth of worshippers and admirers.

Amass of followers’ further helps the heroes and heroines to attain the status of the “lights of the world and demigods of fame”. Leaders help the followers and vice versa. It is a virtually endless process to which history bears witness.

History has, in fact, proved beyond doubt that ever since the emergence of human society, someone who is more powerful and cleverer than the others has somehow managed to become a leader, first of a group and then of a large section of society, commanding their loyalty and obedience.

The ambitious leader seizes every available opportunity, diminishing the difficulties of an enterprise and making the most of the advantages. He thus, emerges as a conqueror, a benefactor and the symbol of the people’s hopes and aspirations. Then follows hero worship and the personality cult to which the masses in particular begin to subscribe blindly or by intuition.

The cult is developed so fast and goes so deep that questioning is ruled out. Theirs is not to question why but to do and die. Douting Thomases are frowned upon and are soon liquidated as rebels and traitors to the cause. The methods adopted for their elimination depend upon he degree of ruthlessness of which the hero or the leader is capable.

Of course there are heroes in evil as well as in good. There have beer, clever schemers who have fooled people for a long time without having been found out, just as there have been people who on merit deserved to be top leaders of society but who were unlucky and were pushed out of their rightful place, or toppled as the modem phrase goes, by other restless and ambitious men. Luck, therefore, has played an important part in building up heroes and heroines.

Throughout the centuries, leaders of men who won wars have commanded the initial advantage. Glorious victories in wars have led to the establishment of empires and the emergence of new kings and queers who were virtually worshipped or at least widely respected and obeyed by millions of people. Caesar and Alexander were notable examples of such heroes in the past.

Twentieth century examples of victors are provided by Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and several other dictators who were mores ruthless than their predecessors in history. Although, they were heartless i and ordered the murders of countless people in many regions, they were j instinctively obeyed during their lifetime.

The personality cult was very much in evidence during their rule. The ignorant millions treated then as if they were incarnations of the Almighty and hence destined to rule over them. Their amazing morbidity, their cruelty and their selfish exploitation of their subjects were all overlooked.

For some years their names were on everyone’s lips; towns, parks and even libraries were named after them. Their portraits and statues were seen everywhere, as id nothing else mattered in the people’s lives. Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini; I Italy and Stalin’s Russia thus provide outstanding examples of the personality cult in modern times. They showed how the lives of the people could be controlled and commanded through the various media of communication, how the press could be muzzled and exploited for indoctrination and brainwashing.

The techniques they devised to create in the people’s minds an image of their invincibility and godlike supremacy have been followed by leaders of some backward countries. They showed how all branches of the Government and all official functionaries could be harnessed to the sole purpose of enslaving people in the true master-servant relationship that is so characteristic of dictatorships. Intoxicated with power and surrounded by courtiers and flatterers, these adventurers sought to perpetuate their regimes and made mincemeat of the people’s basic freedoms.

But it is not only famous victors in wars who have become heroes. Spiritual leaders, peace-campaigners, symbols of truth and peace, liberators of humanity from serfdom and those who have proved to be true benefactors of humanity in other ways have also become famous and commanded respect, devotion and obedience born of genuine devotion.

Emperor Ashoka, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru proved to be shining examples of unforgettable heroes who have left indelible imprints on the sands of time. They are remembered not out of fear but out of deep respect and affection.

Their name and fame have become firmly established for generations not for a decade or so, as is the case with dictators. They have devoted themselves to constructive work, not to destruction; to nation-building and spread of the gospel of amity, not to the spread of hatred or enmity. They have not destroyed human liberty and the basic freedoms of man but cherished and promoted them to the best of their capacity. They have not been corrupted by power but have remained humble, with service of the dumb masses and freedom of their country as their life’s goal. They did not sow the seeds of strife but preached goodwill. They too could have reached the heights of power in the ordinary sense, but they regarded the attainment of power as the ambition of lesser men. They never sought or demanded blind obedience to their wishes; on the contrary they urged the people to judge everything on merit and to cherish the true values of civilization, not the deceptive glitter of worldly attainments.

Personality cult is not favoured by people in whom the democratic instincts are deep-rooted. Freedom-loving, independent, self-respecting people value their leaders, but they do not worship them. They are conscious of their rights and also of the fact that the personality holding the reins of administration is their own choice, their own kith and kin, and in all respects their representative who holds a high position because of the confidence he or she commands and the services and sacrifices he or she has rendered.

The age of ruthless dictators who ruled by sheer might and compulsion has now gone, never to return. There is greater security, and greater awareness of the people’s rights expressed through the ballot-box and also through their representatives in Parliament.

Absolute authority is no longer tolerated, nor is irresponsibility. The leaders in democratic regimes are fully answerable to the people and do not regard themselves as infallible. They are instinctively opposed to the doctrine of glorification of man or woman simply because of family ties or traditions of power.

Everyone must deserve his place by virtue of performance: otherwise, conspiracies and sabotaging activities get a fillip and the impression spreads that usurpers are on the scene. The personality cult, in its worst form, is therefore a sorry reflection on democracy and universal education. It betrays tendencies which held sway in ancient times or in the middle ages when human and national values were totally different.

It is true, however, that even in democratic countries some people manage to dominate the rest without possessing all the qualities of genuine leadership. Democratic people occasionally tend to become slow, weak and even indifferent. The inertia that comes naturally to comfortably and well-governed people proves to be their greatest weakness.

Unrest and discontentment however take serious forms when the basic freedoms are suppressed and when the rulers tend to become authoritarian and] consistently ignore the people’s wishes. Then, surely, other leaders emerge mobilize public opinion afresh and defeat the selfish people at the hustling.

Systematic encouragement of the personality cult will, therefore, tend to kill the souls of men and women and transform them into mechanical thoughtless human beings incapable of judging rights and wrongs. Caesars are not wanted in the current times; they are relics of a bygone age.

No longer can people be treated as if they are cattle, to be taken anywhere and in any direction in which the rulers choose to take them. Worship of, or blindly doting upon, VIPs are therefore unworthy of people endowed with intellect and the power of discrimination.

The well-known author E.M. Forster summed up the intelligent man’s reaction admirable thus: “Hero-worship is a dangerous vice, and one of the minor merits of a democracy is that it does not encourage it, or produce that unmanageable type of citizen known as the Great Man. It produces instead different kinds of small men—a much finer achievement. People who cannot get interested in the variety of life and cannot make up their own minds get discontented over this, and they long for a hero to bow down before and to follow blindly. Significantly, a hero is an integral part of the authoritarian stock in trade.”