by R.K. Narayan; published May 24, 2004
Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha:
Anantha Vikatan, the popular weekly published from Chennai, has been a household name among Tamils for decades. In one plane, it can be tagged as the equivalent of New Yorker for Tamils. In its English translation, Anantha Vikatan reads as ‘Happy Humorist’. One cartoon which appeared in the Anantha Vikatan, in an Olympic year (either 1968 or 1972, if I’m not wrong) still remains etched in my memory. The cartoonist had picked on why Indian sportsmen never get gold medals in Olympics (with the exception of a team sport – field hockey), and allowed his imagination to swing. His discovery was that, the sports in which Indians excel have never appeared in the Olympic roster, since 1896. The cartoonist’s multi-panel vision of sports in which Indians are unbeatable consisted of (1) spitting, (2) pit-digging, (3) marathon political oratory – instead of marathon run, and (4) PPPP – which stands for, poster pasting in public property.
I would add another sport, in which Indians are tough competitors and sure shots for the gold medal. This is, ESD, which stands for excessive sycophantic display. The recent exhibition of ESD in New Delhi, following Sonia Gandhi’s refusal to accept the prime ministership of India, provided filler news to the multi-media. Here is an excerpt from BBC News:
“Television channels began flashing news that Mrs [Sonia] Gandhi had made up her mind to refuse the premiership. As the news broke, Congress Party MPs and supporters gathered outside 10 Janpath – her Delhi home ever since she left the prime minister’s residence in 1989, after Rajiv Gandhi lost the election. Emotional supporters chanted: ‘Long live Sonia Gandhi’ and ‘No Sonia No Government.’ Others took more alarming steps to express their feelings.
Gangacharan Rajput, a former MP, climbed up on his car holding a revolver to his head and threatened to shoot himself if Mrs Gandhi refused to change her mind. Police managed to overpower him and wrestle him to the ground. Other Congress politicians were distraught. ‘We don’t know what to do,’ said Salman Khursheed, who won his first election underRajiv Gandhi…” [Sanjoy Majumder, ‘Why did Sonia change her mind?’, BBC News Online, May 18, 2004.]
That this type of excessive sycophantic display had attracted that keen observer of Indian society – R.K.Narayan is no surprise. He did write a short feature, entitled ‘The sycophant.’ It is a given that sycophancy is not limited to Indians; rather, it exists universally in many cultures where caste, class and power distinctions prevail strongly. R.K.Narayan cites a passage from Hamlet by Shakespeare, which shows sycophancy was prevalent in Elizabethan England during Shakespeare’s time.
But, in my opinion, those who pride themselves of possessing 2,500 years of civilization – including Sri Lankans and Chinese, other than Indians – have elevated sycophancy into an art form. Among the current practitioners of the sycophancy art form in Sri Lanka, the foreign minister Kadirgamar had proved himself as a champion for the past 10 years. His recent vaudeville act in New Delhi (before the Indian General Election) and Washington DC, genuflecting for many; (1) his boss President Chandrika Kumaratunga, (2) his newly found support group [the JVP allies, who had wanted him to be the prime minister!], and also (3) Indian bureaucrats, on themes beyond his parrish [such as LTTE leader’s Pirabhakaran’s extradition] was an arresting performance in sycophancy.
In answering questions from the audience who had assembled to listen to his lecture at the Brookings Institute, Washington DC, Kadirgamar also wallowed in self-pity, with a wail note, “I did my duty at that time. I was only reflecting my people’s view. I know LTTE wants to see me dead. I am at the top of their hit list…” [http://www.tamileelamnews.com, May 13, 2004]. Let me make it clear; Kadirgamar’s duty was nothing but that of a sycophant. His ‘people’ refers to only one power hungry woman politician. And on that nonsense of ‘I am at the top of their hit list,’ I doubt whether LTTE would even want to waste a bullet on Kadirgamar. For them, a bullet is more precious than the life of an ‘over seventy’ sycophant. If the LTTE did not bother to target their arch military adversaries like Sri Lankan Presidents J.R.Jayewardene and D.B.Wijetunga, that they would waste a bullet on a geezer who doesn’t have any political power base in Sri Lanka is utterly ridiculous.
Kadirgamar’s wail note of “I did my duty at that time” prompts me to present R.K. Narayan’s original piece on sycophants, for electronic record.
The sycophant
‘Sycophancy is one of the oldest professions in the world. Old King Cole was a merry old soul because he could afford to be so. He would have felt choked by his surroundings but for the sycophant may well be called the provider of peace of mind for those in authority. He acts as a shock absorber – even this word is a little ahead of the sense: it would be nearer the mark to say that he acts as a shock repeller. The sycophant is ever watchful and manages to keep his chief from feeling unduly bothered by conscience or common sense. The sycophant’s genius lies in showing a feeling that is not his own but his master’s. He cannot afford to assume any colour of his own. His survival depends upon his capacity to take on the hue that his master is likely to assume at any given moment. Hamlet points to the sky and asks Polonius: ‘Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?’
Polonius: ‘By the mass, and it’s like a camel, indeed.’
Hamlet: ‘Me thinks it is like a weasel.’
Polonius: ‘It is backed like a weasel.’
Hamlet: ‘Or like a whale?’
Polonius: ‘Very like a whale.’
I quote this because it seems to me a masterpiece of sycophancy, although Polonius has perhaps other aims, such as wanting to humour a mad man, in making himself so agreeable.
The essence of a sycophant’s success lies in his capacity to remain agreeable under all conditions. He may not be a lover of children, least of all his master’s favourite, the seven-year-old devil. He may feel like spanking him and putting him in his place whenever he sees him, but his first sentence, his opening line for the day, always is: ‘How is the little charmer, sir?’ He has to show a keen interest in the boy’s games, books, hobbies and friends; and cherish for timely use one or two quotations from the young man’s speeches which display his wit and wisdom. There is a certain amount of self-abnegation involved in it. The sycophant is one who sacrifices much and bears much, and it is no small strain to remain agreeable under all conditions. After all, when we come to consider it, what is his personal gain in all this? It is not much. All that he seeks is that he be allowed to bask forever in the sunshine of his master’s presence. This gives him a reflected glory and an authority which seem to him the most important acquisition in life; the material and other advantages that may arise therefrom are mere by-products. He practises sycophancy for its own sake, for the pleasure it gives, for the sense of well-being that it spreads all around. This man I would place at the summit of the category. One who pactises this fine art for the sake of obvious gains can take only second place in this hierarchy. It has all the difference that we observe between one who is a devotee of art for art’s sake and the utilitarian who uses art for propaganda. When we see a man employing sycophancy for some cheap purpose we are seized with the same sense of bathos as overwhelms us while seeing a film, perfectly made in every way, but out to show only the virtues of the caterpillar wheel or of chemical fertilizers.
When the history of mankind comes to be written more fully, I expect a great deal will be included about the sycophant and his influence on human affairs. How many rulers of men, how many despots, lived in worlds of their own, unperturbed by contrary views and outlooks? In the Fall of Berlin, there is a historic instance, which may be of questionable accuracy, but the portrayal itself seems signficant. Hitler is told that the fall of Moscow is imminent, a matter of a few minutes. He keeps looking at the time and frets and fumes. A military adviser suggests that Moscow may, probably, never be taken since, in the course of its history, many an invader has had to turn back from its gates. This man is dismissed instantly and a courtier who blindly assures Hitler that the German troops are at the moment marching in the streets of Moscow is promoted very high. We may question the propriety of this presentation but it is a perfect example of the sycophant’s role in human affairs.
The American colloquial expression for it is more direct: ‘Yes-man’. It seems to me that this expression may not exactly mean sycophancy but something more. ‘Yes-man’ appears to be a democratic word. Sycophant is quite adequate for one-man rule, when the ruler did not have to worry about public opinion, but nowdays the ruler has to get through his business with the backing of yes-man, which alone can give it a democratic touch.
The yes-man’s role is not necessarily confined to politics. Of late he has made his appearance in the scientific world also. When a scientist becomes a yes-man he will assert that the earth is square or flat or crooked, just as it suits his master’s mind. Galileo’s trouble was that he could not show this accomodating spirit and hence suffered persecution all his life. Now in some places the scientist obviously avoids the folly of Galileo, and is ready to assert that man and not nature should decide how much time wheat or some other corn ought to take to grow and ripen, if his master shows any signs of annoyance at the time-table followed by nature.
I have tried to trace the origin of the word ‘sycophant’. The dictionary says: ‘perh. orig.’: ‘one who informed against persons exporting figs’, from sukon, ‘fig’; see Syconium, which injunction I could not lightly ignore. I looked up Syconium to know that it was Greek for fig or a near-fig-like fruit. I have found it very illuminating on the whole. I realized that we have after all been bandying about a word without being aware of its association with the fig business, its export restrictions and possible controls, the men who profited by flouting the law, and the greater profit that other men derived by watching (and informing against) the men who profited by flouting the law, and these last were known as sycophants. This is all only an incidental discovery. My original purpose in turning the pages of a dictionary was to know if sycophant had a feminine form. I am sure it will be a heartening piece of news for many to know that there is no ‘sycophantess’ just as there is no such thing as yes-woman.’
[Source: R.K.Narayan – A Writer’s Nightmare: Selected Essays 1958-1988, Penguin Books, 1988, pp.78-80.]
End Note by Sachi Sri Kantha
The penultimate paragraph in Narayan’s essay refers to scientists who become sycophants to politicians. This learned sub-tribe (including non-scientist academics, who are specialist historians) flourishes in the Third World nations. Two notable academics whom I can identify as sycophants of J.R.Jayewardene, when he was President of Sri Lanka, were Prof.Stanley Kalpage and Prof.Kingsley M.de Silva. Though he did not name the scientist in this paragraph, it is obvious that Narayan was referring to the now-disgraced Soviet geneticist Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976) who was a sycophant to Communist leader Stalin. But, as I indicated in the front note, sycophancy is universal. Even in 20th century America, roles played by some of the émigré scientists to American politicians, borders on sycophancy. Edward Teller’s (1908-2003) promotion of ‘star wars defence’- termed Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI)- to President Reagan’s administration in the early 1980s was one such act. Powerful sycophants also damage the careers and lives of their peers, with whom they do not see eye to eye. Lysenko was responsible for the harassment and humiliation underwent by noted Soviet biologist Nikolai Vavilov. Similarly, Teller’s testimony against Robert Oppenheimer during the McCarthy era witch-hunt pained many Americans.