Politicians and poetry: What’s the connection?

In her first Presidential speech, Droupadi Murmu invoked the country’s tribal legacy. Her message was loud and clear — service for the greater good. To reinforce her point she quoted the 19th Century Odiya poet Bhima Bhoi. “Mo Jeebano pachhe narke padi thau, jagato uddhar heu’. Arthaat, apne Jeevan ke hit aur hit se badaa, jagat kalyan ke liye karya karna hota hai.” Loosely translated, the sentence means that working for the welfare of the world is far greater than working for one’s own interests.In this podcast, we dwell upon the whys and wherefores of the fact that politicians often break into poetry while delivering their speeches. Sociologists and academicians gave several theories for this. They said that political leaders love to garnish their speeches with popular verses from well-known poets. It’s just a way of driving their point home. When speeches get long, it works as a tactic to keep them glued. Many a time, it is used just to lighten the mood of the listeners.Haraprasad Das who is an Odiya language poet, essayist, and columnist says that speeches embellished with verses add colour, credibility, and an immediate appeal to people and the audience to which it is addressed. Das was conferred with the covetous Kalinga Literary Award in 2017.“Poetry, after all, is a colourful language,” he says. “When you quote poetry from an established poet, you evidently wish to reach the heart of the people whom you are speaking to. It’s a way of delivering your intentions, however mundane and dry it may be, with a cloak of amiability, beauty, grace, and perhaps sometimes rhythm,” he adds. Jayanta Mohapatra, a retired professor of political science from Berhampur University, gave two reasons why eminent personalities take recourse to poetry in their prose. “The purpose is to re-emphasise their argument. They use those quotes to justify what they have to say,” he says. At times the quotes get the public interested in listening. India’s finance ministers, from Manmohan Singh to Nirmala Sitharaman, have quoted verses in their Budget speeches. Sitaraman, for instance, quoted Chanakya’s Neeti Sutra in her Budget speech in 2019. Late Arun Jaitley, who loved writing poems, took a dig at the Opposition through his poetry. Manmohan Singh has made several Budget speeches come alive with poetry. For instance, in 1992 he recited the lines written by poet Muzaffar Razmi: “Kuchh aise bhee manzar hain taareekh ki nazron mein,Lamhon ne khataa ki thi, sadiyon ne sazaa paayee.”Roughly translated, it means: “Even this has happened in history: mistakes made in moments have created trouble for centuries.”In 2013, the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram used a couplet from Tirukkural, a classic Tamil work by Thiruvalluvar comprising 1,330 couplets. His message was that India may go further down if it does not make the correct decisions and choices.And then we have Laloo Yadav, who was quite popular for bringing humour to his speeches. He has even used quotes from a film song that was written by Sahir Ludhianvi — “Tum agar mujhko na chaho to koi baat nahin, tum kisi aur ko chaho to mushkil hogi”Persuasive communicationPolitical leaders use poetry as a tool for, what is termed in social sciences, persuasive communication, explains Anup Dash, retired professor of sociology from Utkal University. “A good political speech must be effective, and to be effective it must be persuasive. Politicians make several persuasive strategies to organise their speeches. Obviously, as politicians, they want to persuade their audience to listen to their point of view. In social sciences, this is called persuasive communication. This is a strategy of persuasive communication on the path of political leaders,” he says. Dash says the impulse of political leaders is to strike a chord with the audience, evoke emotions and inspire the audience to a higher goal. So they use not only poetry, but also history, culture, and even religion. Explaining persuasive communication, Dash talks of Aristotle, who identified three parts of the art of persuasion. “The great Greek philosopher talked about a framework in which he spoke of three major modes of persuasion. One is Ethos, which is an appeal to ethics, the second is pathos, which is an appeal to emotion, and logos, which is an appeal to logic and reason. Politicians anchor their speeches on ethos, pathos, or logos,” he says.In the famous Hollywood film Dead Poet’s Society, protagonist John Keating says, “We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.”On the other hand, John F Kennedy said: “If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.”Audio Production: Prateek Kapoor