You need power ?

You need power only when you want to do somet0hing harmful otherwise love or compassion is enough to get everything done.

The above quote has been assigned to Charlie Chaplin, and Osho owns the word compassion in it because Charlie had mentioned only love.

In college, we were having a party for students and the faculty members. A professor came to us and said, “I just got the news that I am the head of Examination”.
Before I could congratulate him, he continued “Now, I will have the power to ruin someone’s life ” looked around and laughed. I stood shocked by his reaction and did not congratulate him. I expected him to tell us now that he has the power, he will bring some reform in the examination system. And he kept repeating the same, moving around to other groups, some of them were laughing, I didn’t find it funny and pitied his inferiority complex.

A guy going for an interview for IAS, Indian Administrative Service. When asked why does he want to go for it, he said he will have lot of power. I asked him for what. He said “I will get respect from people and they will be afraid of me”.
I told him respect and fear do not go together”. “They may show respect to you out of fear , mind you it will be only a show and then you will have to wag your tail in front of politicians “.
“Thats ok, still I will have lot of power ” he said. ” I will be safe from others and I and my family can enjoy lot of facilities”.
He may be an exception, there are many who are honest and bold, to know who they are, look at the transfer records of these officials.

We hear people want to join politics to cleanse the system, remove corruption, improve health of the nation, Blah blah..”
And when he becomes one, he is busy protecting his chair with very little time and opportunity to govern.
Though he gets a position of responsibility, he aligns with the existing system, unable to change anything. The values and ethics gets buried and he merges with the system.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The book Animal farm by George Orwell uses animals to portray human beings to show how power leads to corruption in our society.
Each animal has an opportunity to power and they uses it for good and bad. Snowball was a character, that was equal to Napoleon, with the same amount of power and he was also the only leader that did not become corrupt with power. Snowball was the one everyone could trust, he spoke the truth and made promises that he could keep. Snowball is one among the few characters I know of who used power for good.

The ones who has used power for good are exceptions and have not survived for long.

Everybody talks of corruption and talks of getting rid of it. There is a section which whispers, “Shshh..I wonder who wants it removed, it get things done, the time you waste in que or rejection, you can make more money in that time. ”
Every business has an invisible corruption item added into the cost of the product or service. It’s a tool that makes rich richer and poor poorer.

Everybody has a weakness for power in some form or the other or over someone.
It requires a conscious effort to use power to benefit others.

One occasion, I found absolute power did some good along with damages.
People were rushing to work to reach before or on time. The trains were waiting at the outer for signal because they reached before schedule, all the chimneys of the factories were smoking, the government offices were clearing the files at high speed, the colour of red tapes changed, my friend got his driving license without bribing. We were experiencing a great change at the ground level. Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister had declared a state of emergency for some dubious reason, in 1975 which lasted for 21 months. It may have killed democracy, freedom of speech, voice of opposition, however things were moving for the common man.
The ruling party proposes and opposition opposes, that’s democracy, it’s been like that since our country got freedom the exception is increase in their salaries and fringe benefits, absolute unanimity.

Another tragic case of power and corruption joining hands to destroy an individual, ISRO scientist, Mr. S Nambi Narayanan, a mechanical engineer with a masters in chemical rocket propulsion from the Department of Aerospace & Mechanical Sciences at the Princeton University, one among the pioneers in Indian space science.
Foreign hand, government, media, police and other agencies (all anti nationals) got together with vested interest, finished his career and pushed back country’s aerospace program by many years.
Finally he has been set free of all charges, after police beating, torture and jail, uncompensatable years and life.
I just read a book by him in Malayalam “ormakalude brahmanapatham”, where he has brought out his side of the truth and his fight continues to bring the devils to book.

Ready to fire is the translation in English and there is a movie in the making with R Madhavan as the wronged man.

The Supreme court ordered Kerala State Government to pay him, Rs 50 Lakhs as compensation and now he has been awarded the Padma Bhushan.
His reaction is that his dignity is being returned step by step.

If you misuse power, it will bite back on its way out.