Political analysts
ascribe one of the prime factors for the victory of Arvind Kejriwal in recent
assembly elections in Delhi to his act of seeking apology from the people of
Delhi while compaigning for Delhi elections. The apology which he sought was
for his past act when when last time he quit as Chief Minister against the huge
expectations of the people. This may be true to a great extent as this
certainly struck an emotional chord in the people's minds as people appeared to be swayed by his sincerity due to his act of apology. I don't know whether thee is any precedence of politicians asking apology from the people, or the electorate..
May be based on Arvind Kejriwal's style, Nitish Kumar, who has become Chief
Minister of Bihar again, also recently asked apology from the people of Bihar for not
understanding their feelings as he had quit as Chief Minister and made Manjhi
the Chief Minister. It now appears that 'apology' word will now be used as an
emotional weapon to woo the electorate. At a time when trust-deficit in
politics is becoming wider, this is a desperate act to connect with the people
psychologically. A feeling of sincerity may be implicit in this, but I fear
that this may start a trend when we may
see increasing uses of the word 'apology' by the politicians when their action
backfires. It will be hard to distinguish between the real and fake. Instead of
restoring trust, the germs of distrust will spread more.
Cases of seeking apologies by the leaders/chief executives of organizations
in in any field may be very less as this requires great effort in shedding
arrogance. It requires a great degree of magnanimity too. But, if we see a
rising trend of politicians seeking apologies, then we may feel that why
politics is only a field where seeking apology is required? The trust-deficit in politics is so huge that the strategy of 'apology' may not work. Politicians will have to devise other strategies..
