William Shakespeare wrote, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’.
If he were alive today, he might have added a political amendment – some do not audition for the role; the role is simply handed to them.
Open casting
Modern democracy increasingly resembles open casting. The stage is Parliament, the script is a manifesto, and the performers come from unusual professional backgrounds – comedians, rappers, television personalities and, occasionally, reluctant politicians.
Take Volodymyr Zelensky, who once played the president in a television comedy before becoming the president of Ukraine in real life. It was a remarkable transition from fiction to reality. Unfortunately, geopolitics does not follow a script, and wars do not end when the director says cut.
In Nepal, Balen Shah, a rapper and engineer, was elected mayor of Kathmandu, defeating established political parties and career politicians. Voters, tired of traditional politicians, chose a performer who spoke directly to the public, bypassing party structures and political hierarchy.
Greatness thrust upon
In India, Bhagwant Mann, a former stand-up comedian, is now the chief minister of Punjab. Comedy teaches timing, delivery and audience engagement – valuable skills in politics. Governance, however, is a different discipline. It requires less timing and more time.
And then we come to Rahul Gandhi. Here, Shakespeare becomes relevant again. In Twelfth Night, he wrote: ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them’.
In Indian politics, we have refined this further – some have leadership thrust upon them, and the party spends the next 20 years explaining why.
Performance vs politics
Rahul’s political career is not a story of rise, struggle or ambition. It is a story of appointment. In most professions, performance determines promotion. In politics, in certain parties, promotion sometimes determines performance – or at least the expectation of it.
To be fair, democracy allows anyone to rise. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi often reminds the country that he was once a tea seller. That story matters because it explains a political skill far more valuable than speech-making – he understands public taste. A performer seeks applause; a chaiwala seeks customers. One learns dialogue, the other learns demand.
The audience pays
That, in many ways, is the difference between performance and politics.
Shakespeare, in As You Like It, said the world is a stage. What he did not tell us was this – in a democracy, the audience chooses the actors, but not always the script.
And once the show begins, the audience cannot leave the theatre. Bad theatre closes in a week. Bad politics runs for five years. And the audience cannot ask for a refund.
