WHICH LEADERSHIP MODELGANDHIAN OR MACHIAVELLIAN?

L.M.BHOLE

Abstract

Many current and past events in the world clearly reflect the miserable failure of the modern leadership across the globe. This leadership failure has significantly contributed to the crisis of survival of man today. If the man and his environment are to survive, we need to search for the appropriate leadership model. As a part of such a search, the present paper discusses the major tenets of the Gandhian and Machiavellian models of leadership in a comparative manner. The paper shows how and why the Gandhian model is admirable, attractive, timely, relevant, and redeeming, while the Machiavellian model is not.

L.M. Bhole is professor of Economics, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

WHICH LEADERSHIP MODELGANDHIAN OR MACHIAVELLIAN?

L.M.BHOLE

A powerful human following can be assembled not only through the cunning game of the usual political maneuver and trickeries, but through cogent example of a morally superior conduct of life. -Albert Einstein

Introduction
As the world was entering the new century and new millennium, Delhi, the seat of power and the abode of leaders, was thrown into darkness on January 1, 2001 due to the failure of power grid in North India. The power grids, the State Electricity Boards, Electricity Supply Companies (remember Enron) have been in mess for long enough of time in India. In the first week of March 2001, many statues of Buddha were vandalised and reduced to rubble by Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, reminding one about similar senseless destruction of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Around March 15, 2001, Taliban leadership intended to sacrifice 100 cows to atone for delays in destroying Buddha statues. The Indian masses woke up on March 8, 2001 to learn about another fraud/scam on the Bombay Stock Exchange perpetrated by the Stock Exchange, business, and corporate leadership. Before the masses could even partially recover from the shock, they were served on March 14, 2001with yet another Armsgate i. e. sleaze and corruption in defense deals on the part of bureaucrats, ministers and other political leaders at various levels, including the top ones.

L.M. Bhole is professor of Economics, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

During the past ten years of so called New Economic Policy in India, the people have been made to suffer from the weight of leadership-inflicted contradictions such as downsizing production enterprises vs. jambo-sizing the State and Union cabinets, or sloganizing that there are no free lunches vs. the burdensome increase in salaries and allowances, free telephone calls, free bus-rail-air travels, and many other tax-free perquisites for the leaders in the country. These are only some examples of the failure of corporate and political leadership in modern times. The problems are much more deeply serious. Today the man is face to face with economic, political, social, environmental, and moral crises of the first order, which have taken the humanity to the pricipice of cataclysmic disaster. During an era of industrial revolution and modernization, man has made an amazing progress in the fields of science, technology, and material wealth creation. But this progress has been accompanied by a far more serious regress in the form of a break up of family, destruction of a communitarian way of life, loss of true leisure, contentment, and peace within and without, increase in disharmony, discord, and violence, and increase in unhappiness. It has been estimated that more than 17 to 18 crores of people have been killed in big and small wars during the 20th century. Right today, numerous intranational and international armed conflicts are raging which are annihilating lakhs of people and devasting vast natural and material wealth every year across the globe. This veritable crisis of survival of man, his habitat, and his civilization has been due to, inter alia, the crisis of leadership i.e. it implies that the sins of omission and commission of the leaders at various levels have engendered the survival crisis. There is, therefore, a need for developing leadership, which will guide people towards harmony, sustainability, peace and happiness. The social scientists need to indicate as to which of the known theories or models or styles of leadership has a redeeming quality. In this context, one intermittently comes across writings, which hark back to Machiavellian model of leadership. For example, an author, while discussing the topic of corporate governance and boardroom politics had recently advised the corporate leaders to remember what Machiavelli has written namely, if a prince is not wise, he cannot be

wisely advised. Good advice depends on shrewdness of the prince who seeks it (Ghosh, 2000, p. 4011). Similarly, another author has recently argued that Machiavellis iron rules on leadership are as timely and important today as 500 years ago, that we need Machiavellian wisdom on leadership, that without it, our fine political, religious, economic, athletic institutions will go to ruin (Ledeen, 1999,p. 188). On the other hand, some other authors have argued that it is the Gandhian approach to leadership, which alone can redeem man and save the society from apocalypse. For example, it has been claimed that Mahatma Gandhi shows, through his precepts and practice (recall his famous, confident, and touching declaration, my life is my message), how a leader can lead people non-violently and yet effectively, to the lofty goals of nation (See Chibber, 1993). It is with this background in view that the present Paper makes a case for Gandhian leadership model as against Machiavellian model. The paper has two-fold objective: first, it describes the important tenets of these two personalities on the traits, personal attributes, core qualities, responsibility, political and moral requirements, goals, mission, vision, means, and values of great and good leaders at all levels of leadership; second, it discusses how and why Gandhian model is important, timely, relevant, and needed today while Machiavellian model is not. It may be clarified that this paper does not discuss questions such as what type of leader Gandhi himself was? Or what qualities and situation led to his emergence as a leader, and so on. The scheme of this Paper is as follows: the leadership tenets of Machiavelli and Gandhi are listed in Section I and Section II, respectively. Section III explains how and why Gandhian thinking on leadership is superior to Machiavellian thinking. Section IV contains concluding remarks.

Section-I Machiavellis Leadership Tenets

The major iron rules of leadership discussed by Machiavelli in his books, The Prince, and Discourses are listed below. The list is based on Bass (1990) and Ledeen (1999). 1. Men are more ready for evil than for good. Man is rotten. The human instinct is for ruin. Man pays little heed to moral sermons or standards of good conduct. Man will lie, cheat, steal, rape, and kill to satisfy his urges. He is not only ambitious but also lazy, slothful, arrogant, dissolute, greedy, sinful, full of vices, and self-indulgent. Human passion easily overwhelms reason making men and women behave as animals. 2. Man is always menaced by enemies who are all too eager to remove him from power, take his riches, and dominate him. If you want to lead, you must presuppose all men to be criminal. 3. If you want to lead, you must demonstrate your ability to rule your own people, to defeat your enemies, and to show your power. The leaders and would be leaders have to be bloody-minded. 4. People, being selfish, will regularly subvert the State and reduce it to chaos. It is in the best interests of the leader to do whatever he can in whatever way he can to prevent chaos from occurring. 5. Religions and ethical criteria for justifying the leaders actions are irrelevant. 6. The leader does not need to be good or to have a moral character, but he must seem to be good and seem to have moral character. He should be seen to be merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, compassionate, and truthful. The image-building is important for the leader. 7. It is much safer for a leader to be feared than loved. To be an effective leader, the most prudent method is to ensure that your people are afraid of you. If cruelty is required, it should be done all at once. 8. The leader must be pragmatic, not idealistic. He should have a calculating attitude without a sense of guilt or shame to obtain and maintain power.

9. The leader must have an element of trickery and original and sinister touch, which leave the enemy puzzled as well as beaten. 10. The leader must imitate the qualities of both the lion and the fox; he must be both powerful and charming, courageous and cunning. 11. The leader should not tolerate any competent and powerful people close to him. 12. The leaders primary task is to maintain three crucial elements of Statecraft namely, arms, laws, and religion, and to renew, refresh, and reinvigorate them periodically. 13. The leader must make the State spectacular by giving rewards and punishments by ordering public executions, by instilling fear, and by not showing mercy. 14. For the reasons of the State, the ends always justify the means. The welfare of the State is the end. The leader must accept the dreadful responsibility and enter evil for serving the State. Whatever the leader does to strengthen and preserve the State is good; whatever tends to work against the State is bad. 15. The leader should be ready at all times to change his strategies, tactics, and methods. 16. The leader must constantly be on war footing, soldiers at the ready, weapons loaded. The good leader recognizes that the conflict is omnipresent, and that he should be rightly prepared to fight and win. 17. Peace increases our peril by making discipline less urgent, by encouraging some of our worst instincts, and by depriving us of some of our best leaders. 18. One does not remove war or escape from its terrible grasp. One only postpones it to the advantage of others. 19. Prophets who came with arms were successful, while those who were not armed were ruined.

Section-II Gandhis Leadership Tenets

Gandhi has many things to say on the subject of leadership which are remarkable for their eternal significance and relevance. One is wonder-struck to find how refreshingly relevant his ideas on leadership are to the societies in India and abroad. Some of these ideas are listed below. They have been culled from his scattered views on varied subjects such as leaders, priests, MLAs, MPs, legislators, ambassadors, governors, ministers, satyagrahis, and so on which are presented in Kher (1967 and 1968), Prabhu and Rao (1967), and Pyarelal (1959). The efforts have been made to choose and arrange them in such a way that they serve as far as possible as counterpoints to Machiavellis leadership tenets listed in the previous Section. 1. We must have faith in the inherent goodness of human nature. There are beauties hidden in human nature. No one is beyond redemption. We must trust others. Trust begets trust. Suspicion is foetid; it only stinks; it is of the brood of violence. Man actually lives by habit, but he is capable of developing his will to an extent that will reduce exploitation to a minimum. 2. It is a bad carpenter who quarrels with his tools. It is a bad general who blames his men for faulty workmanship. 3. Truth and non-violence are all-mighty entities independent of ephemeral things like politics. Politics that are divorced from truth and non-violence are worth nothing. 4. Non-violent non-co-operation can secure what violence never can. The world is inevitably moving to self-destruction or to a non-violent solution to all its ailments- social, political, economical, and moral. 5. The equipment and weapons of the leader for his victory are spiritual, not material. The leader is a person who is known for his penance, sacrifice, selfrestraint, renunciation, and faith in God. He is truthful, humble, tolerant, honest, vigilant, and compassionate. He must honour his opponents for the

same honesty of purpose and patriotic motive that he may claim for himself. His success depends on these qualities and not on legal acumen, calculation, diplomacy, trickery, hatred, and unbelief. 6. Love is the law of our being. The key to effective leadership lies in character and selfless love. A good leader knows his people better than their mothers do, and care even more. 7. The leaders goal is to nurture the power of non-violence and to bring about non-violent organization of people. Political power is not his end. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The centralization of power in the hands of the State is to be viewed with the greatest fear. 8. The permanent history of man is that the warring nations destroy themselves with such fury and ferocity that the end is mutual exhaustion. There is neither bravery nor sacrifice in destroying life and property for offence or defense. Those who take sword perish by sword. The possession of arms implies an element of fear. The fruits of peace are infinitely superior to those of war. War to end war is a myth. The world peace will be achieved when all States will be free, equal, and when all will be disarmed. 9. Means are after all everything. As the means are so is the end. There is no wall of separation between means and ends. Means and ends are convertible terms. Good cannot be brought about by evil. Pure motives can never justify impure action. The realization of the goal is in exact proportion to that of means, which ought to be legitimate, peaceful, and pure. 10. A leader is made by his followers. He reflects in a clearer manner the aspirations lying dormant among the masses. However, the leader must not surrender to mass opinion; he must act contrary to mass opinion if it does not commend itself to his own reason, conscience, and inner voice. The leaders will wrong themselves and those whom they lead if they suppress their own judgement.

11. Leaders are truly the servants of people. The people are their masters and final arbiters of their destiny. Leaders should renounce privileges and identify themselves with the masses. 12. Leaders must hold any office in the spirit of service without the slightest expectation of personal gain. They should go to legislatures only to carry out loyally the popular will, and not for self-advancement, self-aggrandizement, and scramble for profit, honour, and power. Those whose ambition is to serve the country should not take the trouble of entering legislatures. 13. Ministerships are avenues for service. Ministerial offices must be held lightly and not tightly. It is decidedly wrong to create ministerships for the sake of conciliating interests. 14. The salary and allowances drawn by members of legislatures, ministers, Governors, President are out of the proportion to the services they render to the country. They are not compatible with the conditions of a poor country like India. 15. Leaders must be, like Caesars wife, above suspicion. They should make careful and judicious use of public funds, and must account for every single pie put in their trust. Honesty and integrity in the matter of public funds and purses is absolutely necessary. 16. Real leadership emerges only when zealous and intelligent young men train themselves in responsible work without any shields, and with responsibility and discipline. Out of this army of leaders arises one leader who does not have to plead for obedience and discipline but who commends them as a matter of course, because he has been tried in many a battle and has proved his right to undisputed leadership. 17. Leaders must lead. The requisite qualities of leadership do not develop unless would be leaders shoulder responsibility, dare to commit mistakes, and, if necessary, act contrary to the advice of even an exalted and revered personality. The leaders wrong themselves if they suppress their own judgement.

18. The blind following and adoration, and personality cult are perfectly valueless, they do not make a good and great leader. The blind devotion may flatter the vanity of a leader but it most certainly retards societys progress to its goal. 19. That Prince is acceptable who becomes a Prince among his peoples servants. The autocracy of Princes should be converted into trusteeship, not in name but in reality. The arbitrary powers the Princes enjoy must go. The liberty of the people should not depend upon the will of an individual, however noble and ancient may be his descent. 20. No amount of treachery, murders, political assassinations can ever profit a nation. The nation is utterly ruined and laid to waste under the rule of murderers. Even if political assassinations bring about political reform and independence, people should decline to share such reforms and independence. 21. Secrecy is sin more especially in politics. The desire for secrecy breads cowardice and dissemblance of speech. We should avoid even thinking thoughts we would hide from the world. 22. The people with talents, wealth, and power should use their means as a trust for the good of the society. In industry and business also, owners, managers, and labour are the co-trustees for the society. We should favour not a centralization of power in the hands of the State but in an extension of the sense of trusteeship.

Section-III The Merit of Gandhian Model

The careful reading of the above given tenets of two leadership models under discussion would by itself impress anyone about the superiority of the Gandhian model over the Machiavellian model. In this Section we explain how and why the Gandhian model is preferable and more relevant by elaborating on, in a comparative manner, certain leadership ideas of Gandhi and Machiavelli. 1. The concept of man or the belief system regarding the nature of man underlying the leadership theory is lopsided, extreme, and partial in Machiavelli, while it is more balanced, and complete in Gandhi. While Machiavelli appears to have contempt for man, and that he denies man his humanity, Gandhi has nothing but love and compassion for man. One cannot agree with Machiavelli that man is an unalloyed evil; what Machiavelli says is certainly not the whole truth. It is our daily experience that both the devil and the divine reside in man. Gandhi did not deny the devilish, evil streak in man, but he wanted to build everything on that part of human nature which is good, noble, and humane. Gandhi led people with his faith that the human nature unfailingly responds to the advances of love. He believed in the need for controlling, restraining, disciplining the bad in man, and in nurturing the good in him. He developed a revolutionary concept of Swaraj for this purpose. Thus, the Gandhian approach to leadership is both realistic and normative, while the Machiavellian approach is unrealistic and it lacks in idealism. 2. Machiavellis leader lives with a manphobia. The two-way fear is one of the important foundations of leadership in Machiavellis model. The leader is constantly in fear that the enemies surround him on all sides. Similarly, the greatness of leader, and his power and authority are derived from ordering or demanding allegiance and loyalty, which, in turn, are obtained by instilling fear among the followers in particular and people in general. The fear of the State and the fear of leader serve the interests of leader in Machiavellian thought. On the other hand, the fearlessness in the face of the most potent and powerful ruler or the empire is the sterling quality of a leader of Gandhian conception.

Fearlessness (Abhaya or Nirbhaya) is one of the Ekadash Vratas taught and inculcated by Gandhi. Of course, fearlessness goes in hand in hand with humility in Gandhi, while in Machiavelli, the fearful leaders try to cover their fear by arrogance and aggressiveness. Gandhian leader is neither scared nor scaring. Gandhi wanted leaders to have dauntless and unflinching courage. For him the brave leaders are those who are armed with fearlessness, not with the sword. The fearless leaders resolutely refuse to bend the knee to an earthly power, no matter how great, without bitterness of spirit, and with calmness and peace of mind. 3. Machiavellis interpretation and understanding of history for formulating leadership principles, and for drawing lessons for leadership development are partial, faulty and warped. Machiavellis ideas on leadership are based on, inter alia, his reading of the history of evolution of the State. For example, he has argued that the progress of Government has taken place through the cycle of Good State, Bad State, and another Good State. It is a moot point whether such a cycle has been experienced in all countries and in all times. As Ledeen himself has said, Machiavellis characterization of the evolution of State reads like political fairy tale (1999, p. 6). Similarly, if the history has been full of treason, deceit, conspiracies, insurrections, revolutions, assassinations, riots, and wars, the lesson to be drawn cannot be that, therefore, the goodness of leader lies in his being ready for committing these evils. The correct lesson to be learnt from history is that leader is great who would end these evils. Machiavelli has asserted that prophets who came with arms were successful, while those who were not armed were ruined. He has tried to use history to advocate the creed of violence and the primacy and necessity of violent leadership. However, his assertion is ahistorical and it involves warped conception of success and failure or ruin. There remains no hope for the mankind if we are convinced that Christ, Buddha, Mahavir, Nanak, Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Aurobindo, etc. are failures and ruined. There have been examples of hundreds of sages, saints, Rishis, and prophets in the history of India and world who never used any arms, never used any evil means, never entered in any evil, and yet they cannot be said to have failed.

They have saved their souls, and they have saved individuals, communities, societies, nations, and mankind from ruin. It is these saints, Rishis, sages, prophets who are the role models in Gandhian thought on leadership. He has unswervingly maintained that non-violent resistance is direct, ceaseless, intensely active and most effective. He has again and again shown how an awakened soul armed with the power of non-violence could achieve what the whole battalions of armed forces cannot. His following two Statements succinctly convey his position in this context: Hitler. Mussolini. and Stalin are able to show the immediate effectiveness of violence. But it will be as transitory as that of Chenghis slaughters. But the effects of Buddhas non-violent action persist and are likely to grow with age (Pyarelal, 1959,p. 153). And the rishis who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violencewere themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they realised their uselessness and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through violence but through nonviolence(Pyarelal, 1959,p. 160). 4. The importance and essentiality of political power, the pursuit of power, the proper, successful, effective use of power are central to Machiavellian leadership theory i.e. the political power is the goal of a leader and it is a requisite for his effectiveness. Machiavellian leader is devoted to achieving personal glory and material success also. It appears that bad experiences in life had made Machiavelli cynical and embittered, and had made him stress all Yang values namely, politics, wealth, fight, domination, aggressiveness, power, craving for expansion at any price, and wars as leadership imperatives. While the pursuit of political power at all costs is central to Machiavellian leadership theory, the abjuration of such power or Na twam Kamaye Rajyam(do not desire power or rule) is central to Gandhian leadership theory. Yati-dharma(to restrain and guide temporal power by attaining moral and spiritual stature) through power over self (Swaraj) is sine qua non of Gandhian leadership. Gandhi believed that the power corrupts people and their ideals, and, therefore, the leaders themselves should not take power in their own hands. Instead, they should devote themselves to non-violence and guide power, which, in turn, should be withered through politico-

economic decentralization. He did not want leaders to seek power through votes, army, and Government; instead he wanted leaders gaining love, confidence, trust, support of people through their service, inner purity, and moral stature. Gandhis aversion to political power can be established through his many Statements and through certain episodes in his public life. For example, he has said, The moment non-violence assumed power, it contradicted itself and became contaminatedIf the united contrsuctive workers organization tries to go into power politics, it will be its ruinBy abjuring power and devoting ourselves to pure, selfless service, we can guide and influence them. Today everybody in the Congress is running after power. Let us not be in the same cry as the power seekers.but keep altogether aloof from power politics and its contagion. The objective of the contrsuctive work organization is to generate political power, not to capture it. But if we say that political power being attained, it should be ours as a reward for our labour, it would degrade us. Banish the idea of capture of power and you will be able to guide power and keep it on the right patha man who wants to be good and do good in all circumstances must not hold power (Pyarelal, pp. 119-135). Similarly, at least three relevant episodes may be noted in this context. Firstly, in 1937, Gandhi had sent some members of Gandhi Seva Sangh into legislatures to purify politics, to purge it of the violence and corruption. But he had to admit defeat and the Sangh itself had to be wound up. Secondly, he had opposed the idea that the members of Spinners Association should become the members of the Congress Party. Finally, just before his martyrdom, he had proposed that the Congress Party should be converted into Lok Sevak Sangh (Pyarelal, op.cit.). 5. Machiavellian leadership theory is founded on the faulty premise that there are always enemies who are waiting and ready to attack us, and, therefore, the leader should always be ready for the next successful attack or war. Machiavelli believed that leaders should dominate so that they themselves are not dominated, that those who build power must be prepared to fight at all times. He was an advocate of violent revolutions also. For him, the power must be seized and effectively and ruthlessly exercised for the success of revolution. In his view the revolution invariably requires

political killings, and annihilating, physically exterminating or extirpating the erstwhile rulers. According to Machiavelli, the leaders who are ever ready to dominate, attack, go to war, in short, war-happy leaders (war mongers!) are good leaders. He believed that it is simplistic to think that war is a drastic departure from normal behaviour, that peace is rarer than war. Leaders who fail to prepare for the next war on the battlefield, ballot-box, market place-have to suffer from defeat. The leader who rejects military virtue, who is reluctant to send armies into the field, who tries to avoid casualties in the war, is a self-indulgent leader who lacks honour, courage, and commitment. In other words, the reluctance to wage a war is one of the greatest vices of a leader in Machiavellian world. The objectives of Machiavellian leaders, viz., self-glory, material and market success, ambition, winning are plainly not elevating or laudable goals. The leaders who are preoccupied with such goals may become great, but they would not achieve public welfare. The Machiavellian leaders obsession to wage war because otherwise others would dominate him is born of a pathological fear of others; it lacks a realization that war is not a solution to any of the problems of individual or society. Moreover, when every leader, every nation wants to wage a war for the reason given by Machiavelli, the result is a competitive war-mongering. The implications of Machiavellis leadership theory is the maintenance of huge army, Research and Development in weaponry, military and armament expenditure, deficit financing, less of social welfare expenditure, foreign debt, neo-colonialism, and domination by the rich nations and super-powers. The modern leaders of different Nation-States have followed the advice of Machiavelli and they are reaping the bitter fruits thereof. The leadership theory which visualizes and justifies an eternal State of war, a viscious circle of wars arising out of eternal mutual distrust in order to produce great leaders is of little relevance and use to the world. The Machiavellian political philosophy that everlasting peace is a dream, not even a pleasant one; war is a necessary part of Gods arrangement of the worldwithout war the world would deteriorate in materialism (Ledeen, 1999, pp. 76-77) is a horrendous and viscious

philosophy indeed. Does not war itself belong to materialism? The suggestion that the war belongs to a set of higher or metamaterial values is horrible indeed. Gandhi has replaced Machiavellian theme of domination by the theme of autonomy in leadership theory. He has proposed Satyagrahi leaders to end domination, wars, and violence of all kinds, at all levels, and at all places. The leaders of Gandhian perception are genuinely autonomous, and they value others autonomy as much as they value their own autonomy. In Machiavelli, arms, laws, and religion are the instruments of discipline, order, and peace. In Gandhi, Swaraj, autonomy, spirituality, non-violence are the instruments of peace. It is interesting to note that both Machiavelli and Gandhi have suggested that we should take the first initiative to attack the enemy. But in contrast to Machiavellis prescription to launch a violent, blood-spilling attack, Gandhi has advised that we should forestall the aggressor by a counter invasion of good-will, neighbourliness, and unselfish acts of service and love. It was Gandhis conviction that non-violence and Satyagrah were capable of, nay, they were the only means of, dealing with all stages of aggression i.e. before, during, and after aggression. We find life by losing it, said Gandhi. There is hardly a need to belabour the point that Gandhis quest for non-violence and peace is certainly preferable to Machiavellis obsession with power, enmity, and wars. 6. Machiavellis theory of leadership is subservient to what Arnold Toynbee (1969) has called, the modern religion of Nationalism, and, therefore, it is destructive of world peace. Universalism is one of the crucial fundamentals of the Alternative World View which needs to be embraced by everyone if the crisis of survival created by the modern man is to be averted. From this point of view, Machiavellis ideas on leadership would further push the mankind towards destruction rather than survival. In Machiavelli, the goal of a leader is to build a strong Statecraft, strong State, strong Nation-State. Machiavellis leader celebrates patriotism, Nationalism, and Statism. Machiavelli has said, I believe that the greatest good that one can do, and the most gratifying to God, is that one does for ones country (Ledeen, 1999, p. 117). Therefore, in his view, the leader is justified in committing any evil to serve the national interests. He called the leader and people who cared about their nation to risk

everything, even their immortal souls, to make the Nation powerful and mighty. He taught that the law of the State should be seen and obeyed as divinely ordered. Gandhis position on this matter is far more balanced and superior. He, along with other thinkers like Tolstoy and Toynbee, has formed a different and higher tradition of thought on nationalism. He wanted leaders to lead people not to national and their own power and glory, but to the emancipation of the masses from the slavery of hunger and want, and to the freedom to live with honour through village Swaraj or Gram Swaraj. In Gandhian thought, the goal of a leader is to bring about the withering away of the State or the minimization of the State. Gandhi was second to none in loving India. He devoted his life for Indias political independence. He sacrificed his life in her service. But he had utmost respect for the autonomy and independence of other nations also. He wanted freedom for his country so that her resources could be utilized for the benefit of mankind. The Nationalism in the noble sense and the Universalism were finely balanced, synthesized, integrated in his thought. He once said that between India and truth, he was on the side of truth. 7. Machiavelli and Gandhi are poles apart also on the issue of Ends and Means of the leaders. As it has been said above, the goal of Machiavellian leader is narrowly confined to the power and glory for himself and for the Nation-State. According to Machiavelli, the leader should have no compunction in using any means to achieve this goal. For a leader that which works is moral and ethical, honesty is not necessarily the best policy, and truth does not always win. Machiavelli believed that the ends justify means, and the evil becomes good if it is committed to stop another evil. It is dreadful that Machiavelli justified, legitimized the leaders lying, deceit, evil, and his sacrificing numberless people not only on the enemy side but also on his own side so as to ensure that his institutions, programmes, and the State survive. Gandhi, on the other hand, insisted on the sanctity of means always. He believed that the evil and violent means would give violent Swaraj, which would be a menace to the world as well as India herself. He argued that the final goal is determined not by its definition by the leader, but by his acts, and that if the leader takes care of means, the ends would take care of themselves. He further argued that whenever and

wherever violent, evil, impure means have been used, the logic of such means has overruled the will and conscious purpose of those who employed them, and has dictated a course altogether different from what they had envisaged. In other words, the deployment of violent means always has and always will make the State more absolute, more ruthless, more authoritarian, and all-embracing, instead of withering it away (Pyarelal, 1959, p. 130). The human condition today badly needs this vision for its betterment. 8. The Machiavellian leadership theory is an inconsistent or ambivalent mix of fatalism and yangism. Luck, fortune, heaven, time plays a significant, in fact, a dominant role in his thought on leadership. He believed that a great leader can almost always be confident about his ability to win, but some events are entirely determined by luck, and when that happens, even great leaders are swept along by the tide. At times, Machiavelli has said that luck is more powerful than human will, that leaders cannot dominate fortune, and that there is a conflict between the leaders strong self and luck. His position that leaders should act as if their actions are going to be decisive, and as if their fate is in their own hands, and that if they do so, luck is likely to support them, is difficult to understand, because is fate a fate if it supports those who work hard? (See Ledeen, 1999, pp. 33-51). Machiavelli also believed that time makes the man i.e. the time plays an important role in making the leader successful, effective, and a winner. He pointed out that the successful leader requires a profound insight into the nature of historic moment in which he is operating, and that he should be able to develop the capacity of judging the ripeness of time. The leader should grasp the uniqueness of the historical moment, and his decisions, actions, methods, strategies must be in harmony with his times (See Ledeen, 1999, pp. 55-59). The Indian tradition calls this Kalaya Tasmai Namaha (our salutations to time!) and Gandhi would agree with Machiavellis perception on this point. 9. Machiavelli quite often refers to religion and God in expounding his ideas on leadership. This may create a wrong impression that he assigned quite an important

place to the higher and universal religious and spiritual values in the functioning of leaders. In other words, it may create an impression that Machiavelli proposed a religious and spiritual theory of leadership. However, actually he has harnessed religion and God to serve the mundane power politics of the leaders, the strong State, and the Nationalism. For example, he held that the act most gratifying to God is one that benefits ones country, that the fate rather than religion or God plays a much greater role in the life of great and good leader, and that the good religion is one which subserves the temporal, worldly, material goals of the leader. He further held that good religion teaches men that politics is the most important enterprise in the eyes of God, and that religion is central to the military enterprise (See Ledeen, 1999, pp. 116-118). In Machiavellis view, the religion of God ought to be subservient to the religion of Nationalism, Statism, and Militarism. There is a complete absence of such a degradation of religion and God in Gandhis thinking on leadership. It is quite well known that Gandhi approached the political and national life and affairs with deep religiosity, spirituality, and faith in God, and the latter had primacy over the former in his scheme of things. He would not countenance any leader degrading religion and God for his petty goals of power politics. Following Shri Gopal Krishna Gokhale, he aspired to spiritualize politics rather that politicize the religion (See Kher, Vol. I, pp. 3-24). He once said, For me there is no politics without religion-not the religion that hates and fights, but the universal Religion of Toleration (Kher, Vol. I, p. 10). At another time he said, the rock-bottom foundation of the training of non-violent soldier is faith in God.He who accepts God as his protector will remain unbent before the mightiest earthly power(Pyarelal, 1959, p. 79). To the leaders of modern beleaguered and endangered civilization, these ideas of Gandhi should serve as a beacon light to guide them to be on the right course. 10. Machiavellian leaders are not leaders in the real sense of that term. The leadershipness or leaderliness of the individual lies in the fact that he is capable of guiding people to different and higher goals and path than what they, on their own, would have thought of. The leadership must mean coming forth with objective

psychic fact of his experience, as hard as granite and as heavy as lead, and becoming a liberating force, a beacon light to all (Pyarelal, 1959, p. 145). If leaders have to be greater evil doers, dominators, and killers because the men are supposedly born with ruinous and evil impulses and instincts, they are the followers of people and not their leaders, certainly not the great and good leaders. To possess vices on a larger scale than the common people supposedly do, cannot be said to be a true mark of leadership. There is no leadership involved in becoming pathological in order to dominate pathological people, or in founding pathological society on the pathological condition of man. Gandhi, on other hand, wanted leaders to make history by developing a nonviolent social order, non-violent Government, and non-violent minimum State. It was his contention that the leadershipness of a leader lies in the rejection of the doctrine of the sword, in extricating, rescuing, redeeming the humanity out of the whirlpool of universal militarization, and in being the first among the servants of India. 11. Two of the unique concepts in Gandhian leadership theory, which are absent perhaps in all the other theories of leadership, including that of Machiavelli, are (a). the withering away of leadership or Ganasevaktva(each person is his own leader), and (b). the leader as a trustee. His theory of trusteeship is an Alternative to conventional socialism and communism. It posits that the problems of inequality, social injustice, State oppression, exploitation can be solved non-violently if the political leaders, the capitalists, the rich and wealthy, the talented people, the captains of industry, business, and commerce regard themselves as trustees and not owners of the means put in their hands (for elaboration see Pyarelal, 1959, pp. 81-97). Machiavelli emphasized the dire need for a strong leader if the society is to run smoothly and in an orderly, peaceful manner. According to him, people must not be left to themselves, they must be made to do the right thing by the leaders. In contrast, Gandhi had a deep faith in the autonomy, Swaraj, freedom, and wisdom of every individual. Hence he put forth the idea of Ganasevaktva, which, in turn, is based on Bhagvad Gitas teaching of Uddharet AAtmanatmanam (everyone should

redeem himself), and Buddhas teaching of AAtma deepo bhava (be your own light). According to Gandhi, the real test of independence is that the common man should have the consciousness that he himself is the maker of his own destiny, and that he should acquire the capacity to resist authority if it is abused. Further, every Satyagrahi soldier must become his own general and leader; he must become, in a large measure, self-acting, self-guided, self-inspired, self-controlled, and self-led (Pyarelal, 1959, p. 38 and p. 78). Gandhi was against paternalistic rule under which people became a herd of sheep, always relying on a shepherd to drive them. Once while replying to a correspondent he said, there is altogether too much blind following in the country. My conception of Swaraj is not that of many blindly following one man (Kher, Vol. II, p. 156). Thus, the withering away of the State and the withering away of leadership are the unique elements of Gandhian model of leadership. 12. In sum, Machiavellis ideas on leadership are certainly chilling and dreadful. They are about power politics and not about ultimate values. Machiavelli celebrates wars and eggs on people to be in a constant State of war. It is horrifying to find Machiavelli justifying and legitimizing lying, deceit, evil, murder, and killing of numberless people by the leaders. The Machiavellian theory of leadership is unconvincing, untenable, and destructive of common welfare, peace, and happiness. The world today does not need the spiral of competitive domination. Just as the Marxian motto that the expropriators will be expropriated proved futile, the Machiavellian motto that dominators have to be dominated would also prove futile. It is Lincolns maximum, just as I will not be a slave, so also I will not be a master which the leaders ought to follow. The institutions, corporations, and nations will never be at peace with each other in future also if the world continues to follows Machiavellian iron rules on leadership. The killing of about 18 crores of people in various wars in the world during the 20th century, the violent conflagrations and the dance of death in which numberless people have been maimed, raped, orphaned,

tortured, and decimated in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ireland, Palestine, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo, Serbia, Bosnia, Combodia, Afghanistan, and so on in the second half of the 20th century conclusively prove the irrelevance of Machiavelli. On the other hand, Gandhis thoughts on leadership are worthy of the most prayerful attention and consideration of those who are guiding the destinies of nations. His thoughts are most important, relevant, timely today when the choice before us is not between victory or defeat for one side or the other, but between existence or non-existence of civilization and perhaps of the human species itself. Gandhis gospel of selfless action, service, sacrifice, love, power of Truth and Ahimsa, and the soul force alone would enable the mankind to shake off the dominance of our senses over ourselves, and to reestablish our essential unity with all our fellow beings, and thereby to cope up with the forces of violence that threaten us and our civilization.

Section-IV Concluding Remarks

There has been a glaring failure on the part of modern leaders at all levels and in all fields across the globe. This leadership crisis has engendered the crisis of survival of man and all his fellow-beings. One of the reasons behind this dual crisis has been the conscious and subconscious acceptance and practice of the principles of Machiavellian type of leadership model by the leaders in the world. The Machiavellian tenets of leadership are not convincing and tenable. One cannot agree with Ledeen that Machiavellis ideas on leadership are admirable, attractive, timely, and relevant. In fact, they are highly irrelevant and dreadful because they would lead mankind to the darkness of violence in future also, as in the past. If we wish to avert the catastrophe that is threatening the animate and inanimate universe today, and if we wish to create or build a higher-values-based social order,

there is no alternative but to return to Gandhi on the theme of leadership also, as Gandhi on many other subjects. Apart from he himself being a good and great leader, who built up a powerful and unprecedently huge mass following through his own cogent example of a morally superior conduct of life, Gandhi has many valuable, important, timely, relevant, redeeming things to say on leadership, and he has said them with crystal clarity characteristic of him alone. About himself as a leader, Gandhi has said, I have no secrete methods. I know no diplomacy save that of truth. I have no weapons but non-violence. I do not believe in short-violent-cuts to success. I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes(Kher, Vol. III, p. 9). Gandhi has both a realistic and normative outlook on leadership. His model of leadership is in a To Be Mode rather than in a To Have Mode(see Fromm, 1981). His is a complete theory of leadership because it reflects both on (a) the required desirable goals, methods, qualities, values of the leadership which can emancipate and save the mankind, and (b) the ways ultimately to minimize the need for and dependence on any leader by the people. Gandhis ideas and ideals of leadership can serve as a kindly light which can dispel the darkness of destruction, and which can lead us to the heaven of peace and happiness on this very earth in the new millennium.

References

Bass, B. M, Bass and Stogdills Hand book of leadership, the Free Press, New York. 1990. Chibber, M.L., Sai Babas Mahavakyas On Leadership, Sri Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust, Prasanthi Nilayam, 1993. Fromm, Erich., To Have Or To Be, Bantam Books, Toronto, 1981. Ghose, D.N., Corporate Governance and Board room Politics, Economic and Political Weekly, November 11, 2000. Kher, V. B. (ed.), Political and National Life and Affairs, Vol. I and Vol. II, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1967. Kher, V. B. (ed.), Political And National Life and Affairs, Vol. III, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1968. Ledeen, M.A., Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, Trueman Talley Books, New York, 1999. Prabhu, R. K., & Rao, U. R (eds.), The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1967. Pyarelal, Towards New Horizons, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1959. Toynbee, A., Experiences, Oxford University Press, London, 1969.