About Political Altruism:
I think leadership is a question about Altruism. Social work is by essence altruistic in its nature. Where as politics there is always certain mindset driven polity in action behind the scenes. Altruism and politics just do not seem to go together. I read many articles about this. Mahatma Gandhi was seriously altruistic. He is the ideal politician. But altruist politicians are extremely rare breed or perhaps an extinct breed.
I read an article in nature magazine about ants. It gives an interesting insight. The worker ants are truly in a submissive mode. why? was the question. It seems they are altruistic in their genes. There seem to be a genetic imprint inside the ants that though they all born from the same queen’s womb, they divide themselves to work for the greater good of their species survival. i.e. we think ants are working as separate divisions such as worker ants, fighter ants etc., but in reality they are all together in their game for the survival of their species. So at a genetic level they have a duty to do…
When I read that article about ants, I got totally curious. I am interested to know if Humans are also genetically imprinted with these kind of genes of altruism? Otherwise it makes no sense why only certain people such as Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Puccalapalli Sundarayya, Vajpayee, PV Narasimharao and others acted in true altruism. They were able to raise above their own political boundaries and gave a rallying cry to the humanity. Also irrespective of their personal political affiliations people responded to these great altruists rallying call! So humanity knows how to act in symphony when a born altruist gives a call…. Born altruists are often doubted, misunderstood, questioned and insulted. Also no doubt they were not successful in their personal life they paid heavy price, their family life suffered but our question is ‘why they did what they did?’ — I was openly thinking perhaps we human species are also like those ants. we are one at the core and we have this altruistic genes within some of us which make us respond to the call… Perhaps the statement ‘Leaders are born not made’ makes more sense to me. -Madhava Turumella