If democracy was an app, politics would be the software. Power has two widgets: govern and rule. Jawaharlal Nehru governed, Indira Gandhi ruled. Manmohan Singh governed; Narendra Modi rules. Governance is by the approval of the people, while rule is downloaded from a power higher than vox populi.
On March 21, 1609, King James of England declared, “The state of Monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth: For Kings are not only God’s Lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called Gods.” The 19th century English historian John Neville Figgis, in his treatise The Divine Right of Kings justified James by saying the king was establishing “sovereignty” as an acceptable principle using the Divine Right shtick.
History is a conjurer of ironies; James’s royal divinity theory encouraged sovereignty (of the people) to evolve into a modern governance model. Not just James, some ancient Hindu rulers also considered themselves gods. The Devarãja cult of the “god-king” was established in the 9th century by Jayavarman II of Cambodia, founder of the Khmer empire. But the king had rules to be king.
The Brihadaranyaka Upanisad notes that he is a subject of a bigger king, Dharma—“the religious, ethical, social, political, juridic and customary law organically governing the life of the people,” as A Basu puts it in The Sacral Kingship. Hindu philosophical sophistry plays a vital interpretative role in the semantics of authority: Basu explains it is kingship and not the king that is divine. Kingship is a position and a function. The king therefore is important, respected and venerated only because his title and mission are divine. There is nothing sacred about the king himself; if Vishnu is in the king, he is in the people also, says the Upanishads.
Cultures can be delightfully eccentric. George Washington is worshipped as a deity in Hawai Shinto tradition. The late Prince Philip is revered as a cosmocrat in Vanuatu. The Dalai Lama is god to Tibetans. In India, the God Complex appeared with the 13th century Mamluk ruler of Delhi, a former slave named Ghiyas ud Din Balban. He declared that the king was divine and anyone who opposed him was against god, aka, he.
Balban pulled a PR con, naming himself the descendant of a great Turkish warrior to erase his low origins. He enforced strict discipline in court; no jokes, no loose talk, no shoddy attire. He was a distant figure, reserved in public, expressing neither excess joy nor sorrow. He believed in keeping a powerful military and was mercilessly lethal to his adversaries. There was no greater superstar than a king with god as his avatar.
Take Indian superstars, the modern human gods. There is a Rajinikanth temple in Tamil Nadu. Amitabh Bachchan and SRK are worshipped in Kolkata. Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni have dedicated temples. All share an impressive trait: the boundless energy that keeps them raking in success after success. The Mahabharata Shantiparba defines energy as a top qualification to be king.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a bemused TV anchor that the only explanation for his limitless energy was non-biological and God gave him divine force for a purpose. India has a complex cultural ethos where religion, both soft and hard, dictates terms. Wait for a couple of days. We’ll know whether Indians will explain whether God is King or the King is God. The cultural contradiction in politics could be the only fly in the anointment.