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Dear Chiru,
I have been a fan of both the great actor and the noble human being in you. These days I hear a lot about your probable entry into politics. I know the burning desire in you to serve people. I am not sure if you have already taken a decision on “whether to join or not to join politics”. But I want you to succeed in every assignment you take up. The purpose of this letter is to make sure you weighed the pros and cons 100% before taking the final decision on joining politics. In this letter, I convey you my views about politics in general, such as its basic requirements, do’s and don’ts and my ideas about alternative options to politics to serve people. I will be very happy if my ideas are of any help to you. Kindly excuse me if I took too many liberties.
I have two things to convey you here. First one is about the basic requirements of the politics. Please consider these requirements before taking the decision to join or not to join politics. Second one is about the plans you may consider in either of the decision you take.
1. The three basic requirements of politics:
a) Facing the ground realities: Should you become a political leader, every major decision of you would hurt a section of people. I am not talking about the opposition parties, who would curse all your decisions, but the sections of common public who love you currently. You will have to take that in your stride. If your principles (nammina sidhaanthaalu) are aligned to the principles of god, every decision of you will bring justice to the people.
b) Using logic instead of emotions at every step: Because of the infinite love and affection your fans show on you, I think you are a very emotional human being with so much zeal to do good to people and expect only good things from people. It was evident by your reaction in Vajrotsavam when someone hurt your sentiments. This is an excellent characteristic that qualifies you as a good human being. But this might prove to be your weak point when you become a political leader. You may require using more logic and less emotion before making every move. That means you will need to be diplomatic. If your purpose is divine, you could show emotions with a logical reason behind.
c) Spending time to choose the right people to work with you: For you to succeed in politics, you need the company of people who can deliver the goods (horses for the courses). You may need to spend quite some time to find the right people to work with you, but I am sure it is worth spending and it will bring you success in the long term. Your charisma will be a major factor to garner votes for your candidates, but cannot be the only factor. You can take the examples of Laloo Yadav and Sonia Gandhi on what they achieved with right people around them.
2. The plans you may consider “after” you decide to join or not to join politics:
If you decide not to join politics:
Never mind, you may consider channeling all your energies in the following directions.
a) You may choose to expose the bad things in the society using your enormous fan power. You can run TV channels or newspapers dedicated to bring justice to the people. Any government will have no option but to listen to you since you are a self-less human being working for the people.
b) You may choose to raise young leaders. You can discover the young talent and give them resources to break shackles of struggling for survival. They will rise to serve the society with fervor and enthusiasm.
c) You can continue the excellent social service activities you are currently doing.
If you decide to join politics:
It would be fantastic! Here is what you may consider to do to start with.
a) You can prepare your “Mission Statement”. You can write down the goals you want to achieve by the time you retire from politics. You can write them very explicitly and in every detail.
b) Then you can write down the steps you will take to realize your Mission. You can write down your stances on the tough choices you will need to make in your tenure such as:
Ex1: If you make AP liquor free, you will bring happiness to lakhs of families. But it will be very difficult to build ambitious projects without liquor money.
Ex2: Populist promises like reservations or 2-rupee-per-kg-rice-plans to sections of people might get you votes, but you will find it troublesome to your governance down the road.
Please make a decisive choice. We are with you whatever may be the decision you take.
Best Wishes,
Sivaram Pusapati
Email: [email protected]
The views expressed in the article are the author’s and not of greatandhra.com.