Soon, the abyss will have a face

While I was watching '12 Years a Slave' last week, I thought about India and the kind of people who want to run it. In the movie, Mr Parker was the man with a conscience, a man who knew right from wrong, as was Samuel Bass who had the sense to be frightened when asked to do the right thing and the sensibility to do it anyway. Watching Mr Parker's face, I thought of the face of the man who will be India's Prime Minister after our May elections. He is everything Mr Parker is not. He has no conscience, only hubris. He has no values, only a thirst for power. He has no idea what to do with power, responsibility is not an adjunct, as far as he is concerned. His face, and oratory, in fact, give him away. The smug delivery and the calculation in his eyes are as terrifying as staring into the abyss. His face is the abyss staring back.

But all that is secondary. What is beyond terrifying is how so many ordinary Indian citizens think this man is the chosen one who will lead India into some kind of superpower status bar none. Who are these people? Do they imagine economics trumps humanity? That a venal man is alright as long as he makes us money? Oh, if only man stopped at that. But think of the scorpion and the frog; a man's nature is All.

In any case, surely we know by now that a superpower status is overrated. Our PM-in-waiting, He Who Must Not be Named, is not the only one who doesn't know what to do with power/responsibility. Exhibit A-Z: Invading countries whose presidents you don't like; sending drones to kill children on their way to school; jailing musicians or boys who love boys. Or murdering those who believe in a different God from yours. That's not being a superpower, that's pure kryptonite.

He Who Must Not Be Named is the chosen one alright, but not in the way people think. He will lead us, as televangelists would say, into damnation and hellfire. We will all become slaves when he takes his throne, perhaps not for 12 years, inshallah, but even five years is a lifetime we will never get back.

But I watched Mr Parker's face for another reason: In every frame of History, there are also men like him in it.