09/04/2024
OSHO,
Is there any difference between the criminals and the politicians?
The criminal is poor; he is uneducated, unsophisticated and simple-hearted. The politician is a hypocrite -- cunning, diplomatic, sophisticated. But their essential reality is the same. In other words, the criminal is a politician who could not succeed, and the politician is a criminal who has succeeded in attaining power.
But their psychologies are not different. They both want power and domination; they both want to do things without any concern for the consequences; they are both end-oriented, they don't bother about the means. Their basic philosophy is the same: the ends justify the means. If you succeed, then how you have succeeded -- using right means or wrong means -- does not matter. Success proves that your means were right. It is the end that proves your means were right.
They are both violent. But if you have to choose between the two, the criminal is certainly the better. He does harm, but his harm is very limited -- maybe he kills someone. But Genghis Khan alone killed forty million people; Tamerlane killed thirty million people; Nadir Shah killed forty million people. The exact numbers Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and Ivan the Terrible killed are not available. But they must have succeeded in killing far more than Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Nadir Shah.
But numbers for Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hi**er are available. Joseph Stalin alone killed more than one million people after the revolution in Russia. Adolf Hi**er killed six million Jews inside Germany, and in the whole second world war he killed nearabout thirty million people.
Criminals have a very limited score. Politicians are great criminals.
So great that you accept them as your heroes, so great that they create history.
I have known politicians in the highest posts and I have seen criminals. And I was amazed by the fact that criminals have done whatever wrong they have done out of innocence. They were not aware of the law, they were temperamental. In a certain moment of rage and anger they became mad and they did something, but their act was not premeditated. And that makes a tremendous difference.
The politicians I have known have done far greater harm to humanity. And they go on doing harm, because they have all the powers of the armies, of the bureaucracy. And they do it not out of innocence. Their actions, howsoever ugly, are preconsidered, well planned.
But they belong to the same category; politicians are bigger criminals, that is the only difference -- the difference of quantity. The criminals are simple human beings. Their only fault is their unconsciousness. And they don't take note of what the outcome of their action will be. They don't plan it well.
One of my teachers, an old Mohammedan, always used to be in charge of the examinations. He was a very beautiful man. He never married. I asked him once, "Why have you never married? You are such a beautiful man. You could have got a very beautiful woman."
He said, "It is difficult. I can afford only one thing." And he loved clothes so much that he had three hundred and sixty-five dresses -- every day a different dress. And he said, "It is difficult to maintain both a wife.... And I am a poor teacher. In one year's time the turn of a dress will come, and by that time people have forgotten about it." So he was always looking at new dresses -- very costly. His whole salary was going into clothes. But he lived in a beautiful small house, very well decorated with a beautiful garden.
He was very much respected and because of that respect, he was always chosen to be in charge of the examinations. Before the examinations, he would tell the students, "Remember one thing: to do wrong is not wrong, but to be caught doing it is wrong. You are free to do whatever you want to do -- copying, cheating. You may be carrying books inside your clothes, notes.... Everything is allowed, just don't get caught red-handed. I am going to do my work: I will make every effort to catch you. So I warn you; don't blame me later on.
"If you are courageous enough and you are certain that you are cunning enough to get away with whatever you are doing, it is perfectly okay. But if you are caught, you are finished -- your one year is lost. So I will give two minutes' time for you to think. Either you bring all your notes, all your books, that you are hiding in your clothes -- anything that you are doing which is not allowed in the examination.... Just bring it here. I will keep my eyes closed so you don't feel embarrassed, because I don't want anybody to feel embarrassed. After two minutes...then it is your responsibility."
And he would sit with closed eyes, a very sincere man. He simply did not want to embarrass anybody. And students would come with books and notes. Some would even come with notes written inside their shirts and they would have to sit the whole time without shirts. But they knew the man was very clever, you could not deceive him.
And when people started coming, then others would lose their nerve, and they would come. Within two minutes his table was full of notes, clothes, handkerchiefs.... People had to run out to wash their hands, because they had written notes on their hands. Within two minutes everything was clean. And he would ask, "Can I open my eyes or are you still doing it?"
He was saying something immensely important.
The politician is the criminal who has not been caught, and the criminal is the politician who is not clever enough, who has been caught.
And the criminal was doing a very small thing, on a small scale. But basically they are not different. The politicians are ugly creatures in the sense that they go on interfering in other people's lives.
One night Hymie Goldberg is coming home. It is a dark night and he is late. And a man comes close to him and says to him, "I have been robbed. The robbers have taken away everything. All that I have got is this gun." He puts the gun on Hymie Goldberg's chest and he says, "Now, you have two alternatives: either you give me money or I give you death."
There was a great silence. Even that murderer started feeling a little nervous, because Goldberg was just standing there. And he said, "Have you heard me or not?"
Hymie said, "I have heard, but let me think."
But it is very rare to find such people who decide between money or death. Probably most people would give you the money, because anyway, if you are dead, the money will be gone. What is there to think about? But Goldberg has a thousand years of heritage. He is a perfect Jew.
The ordinary criminal uses direct means. That's why he is caught. The politician uses very indirect means.
It is very difficult to catch hold of him.
Indira Gandhi told me once, "I never write anything, I simply phone, because writing can be used as a proof against me any day." This is great planning. She would call the governor of a state and say, "Do it." But she would never write anything. Now, a verbal communication -- there is no record of it. And she said, "There are stupid politicians who go on writing things when they are in power."
And she showed me a whole file. That was her whole power. The file had come as an inheritance from her father, who was the first prime minister of India. He was collecting material against all the politicians -- although they were men of his own party -- proofs that could be exposed any moment if the man tried anything against the party or against the party leader. If anyone wanted to leave the party he could not leave because Nehru knew....
The file became such a terror that even the great leaders of this country were afraid of it. Nobody knew exactly what was collected in the file, because everybody was doing all kinds of wrong things.
Just a few days ago.... There was one president, Sardar Zail Singh, and he had ample proofs against the prime minister that he was not listening to him, he was not even asking him for necessary signatures. Without those signatures, nothing can be done. The president is only a nominal head in India, but his power is the signature. And things were happening without Singh's signature.
But he could not do anything, because when he was chief minister of Punjab, he had been caught red-handed taking a big bribe. The investigation was started, and completed, and it was proved in the investigation that he was a criminal, but Rajiv never passed that file on to him. He never said a single word about it to the newspapers or to the country. This was a key thing.
So, when Zail Singh wanted to say some things to the country which were going to be against the prime minister, he was told, "It is perfectly okay, you can speak but your file is in my hands: it will be exposed. You will be immediately arrested."
He could not ask for an extension to be the president again. And even though he is no longer a president, he cannot say anything against the government though he knows everything, for the simple reason that his own crime will be immediately exposed. When he was president he was immune, he could not have been arrested. But now he is an ordinary citizen. He will be arrested, harassed.... Every harm can be done to him.
Politicians work in criminal ways.
Ronald Reagan was saying to the senate that he would not sell armaments to Iran -- because of course Iran is anti-American -- and, "How can I sell armaments to Iran which can be used one day against America?" He was saying this to the senate and underneath, in the darkness, armaments were being sold to Iran. Nobody would have known it.
And because all those armaments were sold without his own senate and the country knowing about it, all the money must have been going into his own pocket. He was caught red-handed, because when Iran and America had a conflict a few months ago, Iran used American armaments against America. It was a puzzle: how have they got American armaments?
And it was clear to the senate that Ronald Reagan had done another tremendously criminal thing: he has put billions...trillions of dollars into very sophisticated armaments which he does not have people trained to operate. And he has been selling the old armaments which his whole army is trained to use. Now, this is creating the situation where, if America gets into a war with a country like Russia, there is no chance for America to win. It will have all the sophisticated arms, but no experts to operate them. And it has sold all its old armaments for which the whole army is trained.
****Osho*****
