There is a saying that you are never a prophet in your own country. A prophet by whom I mean a visionary leader who leads his people on a chosen path, to a chosen future that they can’t see in the present, which lies in the womb of the future and lives without persecution or fear.

The relationship between a visionary leader and his people is complex, turbulent with ups and downs. While some believe in him with total faith, he also makes many doubtful and scared as he leads them away from their zone of comfort and safety.

Bharat never had any leader for a long, long time who could be prophetic and speak in that language. The two most important and central leaders of our country of the last century were far from prophetic. One led us nowhere with his philosophy of non-violence and utter confusion and the other led his people from one disaster after another with losing more hope each time, no pun intended. Both never talked in a language that gave inspiration and hope for the future. They didn’t talk about envisaging a future for their people.

Today, we talk about and visualise a Bharat of nineteen forty seven, a Bharat also for the next one thousand years. Something similar to when Tagore talked of Bharat taking her place as part of Jagatsabha, holding her place amongst the nations.

What does it do to the people when a visionary leader addresses his people with such language, such visions of the future? It is simple. They are not ready for it and say that they can’t take it. They don’t think like him. They can’t visualize a Bharat that far away. Slavery has robbed them of that ability to see ahead. They are more comfortable with a language they have heard so far, grown up with and conversed in for as long as they can remember. It is the language of slavery that tells- you are a slave and remain one, that you don’t think of the future with hope and deserve any better than this, you should not visualise a future that is full of hope.

Prophetic language is threatening. It is dangerous for a people who are not ready for it. They can’t embrace it and hold it in their heart because it is full of fear and negative feelings. It brings out their deepest fears of standing on their feet, alone and autonomous- something to which they have a no role model to look forward to due to prolonged slavery. Imagine the docile looks on the faces of earlier leaders as they stood with their British counterparts, and one will know what I am talking about. The language of the visionary leader is rooted in the ideas of self-respect, boldness and responsibility and can be threatening for people who have forgotten what these terms mean experientially in the first place and for those whose fathers, grandfathers and ancestors did not pass on to think in that language.

It is imperative that our society, our people have to think in that language before they can be visionary and follow anyone with a prophetic vision.

What emotion does a man who talks in a prophetic language, bring to his people? He creates gratitude. It is a feeling that is a burden and the most difficult one to bear. That is why almost every visionary in history has been betrayed by his followers, the people he led and for whom he gave his heart and soul. His people found the changes a burden too difficult to bear, one that frightened them, and they had to reject him. The follower is used to a mindset that belongs to the past, which is self-limiting and narrow but that is all he possesses and knows to be the end of the reality beyond which he cannot see.

It is not anger but the burden of gratitude that makes him oppose his leader to whom he sits down on the path and refuses to move saying, “I am scared. Do not go fast for me. I should be left where I am which is my destiny, my fate.” What does then the visionary leader do? He knows that his people are scared, but he can’t leave and tells them to trust him one more time to reach the horizon. His people abuse him and may even reject him. He has to accept that as his destiny.

The song in Bengali ‘ekla cholo re’ by Tagore written more than a hundred years ago was meant for such leaders. Such a visionary leader may be followed by a million people, but inside he feels alone because only he has the vision for the future, it is only he who can see the future and he knows that the millions standing behind him are scared of taking any step unless he takes it first and assures them they will be safe.

Visionary leaders come once in a century or a millennium. They promise a different future but one that leads through a path full of thorns. Roses lie ahead. A chosen path that doesn’t let you sleep. A path less travelled or not travelled before. It is a path, a future, where you and your children will live with their heads held high. But it is a path that needs many a sacrifice.

Gratitude can take place in many forms through retrieval of the lost self-respect, through getting back the sacred spaces, through undoing the mind set of slavery. Today, one community faces it more than others as it sees its past trauma being undone, its fragmented identity being healed.

The relationship between such a visionary leader and his people is never a straight path. His people are divided between those who love and follow him and those who look at him with doubt and ambivalence and who are too scared to move ahead. Like reaching the peak of a mountain, a place in a promised time and space of the future, it is only he who knows how to reach there. There will be many soothsayers who will abuse him, who will put doubts in his people saying that he is leading them nowhere. But his biggest legacy will be that he led his people to dream and to fly. When that happens, one may say his chosen people have finally moved out of their slavery.

Image source: WDHB