No praise too high

There’s a chestnut in legendary Shakespeare forger William Henry Ireland’s The Napoleon Anecdotes: the emperor,noticing a grovelling,bent courtier,said aloud,“I know not how it happens,that,in order to understand this man,who is eight inches taller than myself,I am obliged to stoop every time that I speak to him.” What we here are treated to are spectacles such as that of a district collector deifying his chief minister — thus was Narendra Modi,on a tour of Gujarat districts with the Garib Kalyan Mela,elevated to Ram (if the garib were Hindu),Rahim (if Muslim) and Jesus (if Christian) by Girish Shah,the district collector of Dangs. Perhaps the Gujarat chief minister’s road to divinity — in tailor-made packages for each creed — was laid in 2008,when another district collector touched his feet at a state programme.

The spectacle that sycophantic bureaucrats make — and the resultant controversies they periodically generate — is not merely about these civil servants breaking their code of office. Public memory may be short,but it cannot have already forgotten recent and routine news about Uttar Pradesh Chief Minster Mayawati and her police officers. Or Jayalalithaa’s superhuman stature as CM. True,the tendency to deify,or at least magnify,public figures has deep roots. And then it isn’t only about leaders but also stars — larger than life,certainly bigger than us,as befits the gods.

But the crux of sycophancy is that the sycophant does more than what’s asked of him. Thus to prevent the recurrence of this kind of spectacle,s/he who is the target of such absurd,ludicrous praise has a responsibility too. A real or token,but public,reproach or punishment from the boss instantly,and a hundred sycophants would have learned their lesson.