FEAR OF DEATH CREATES THE POLITICIAN
- Madhukar Dama
- May 10
- 4 min read
INTRODUCTION: THE INVISIBLE PUPPETEER
All systems of power—governments, religions, militaries, corporations—appear to be structured around efficiency, order, or progress. But peel back the facade, and you’ll find the same rotting heart beating behind them all: the fear of death.
The politician, in this context, is not just the man in a white kurta or a navy suit. It is a psychological species. It is the human who cannot bear mortality, so he manipulates others, builds structures, and seeks permanence through control.
The politician is not born from love of people but from terror of disappearance.
---
SECTION 1: THE DEATHLESS FANTASY
A child sees a dead bird and asks, “Will I die too?”
The answer from parents, gods, and textbooks is never honest.
So the child grows up with a silent panic.
He studies, accumulates degrees, wealth, titles. But nothing satisfies.
Finally, he discovers something more addictive than money:
Influence.
He discovers that if enough people believe in him, obey him, and remember him, he might never really die.
He builds a career around this belief.
He becomes a leader.
He becomes the politician.
The politician is not trying to serve. He is trying to survive in memory, in photos, in statues, in road names, in textbooks, in televised debates, and in recorded speeches.
He cannot accept that death is absolute.
So he manufactures pseudo-eternity through public relevance.
---
SECTION 2: DEATH’S SHADOW IN POLITICS
The politician smiles on camera.
But he doesn’t sleep well.
Because even after being elected, death is always crouching behind the curtains.
He knows every position is temporary.
Every crowd will move on.
Every fan will find another idol.
So he becomes restless.
He schemes.
He reshuffles cabinets, jails dissenters, sparks identity wars, rewrites history, funds statues, files defamation suits—
All this to postpone the silence of irrelevance.
Even in defeat, he clings.
He forms new parties.
He joins other parties.
He speaks in funerals hoping someone will quote him.
His fear is not about democracy collapsing.
It is about being forgotten.
---
SECTION 3: HOW THE FEAR MASQUERADES AS PATRIOTISM
Fear of death is too embarrassing to admit.
So it wears the mask of nationalism, justice, tradition, ideology.
He will say:
“I’m saving the culture.”
“I’m protecting the people.”
“I’m building the nation.”
But all he's really doing is building a coffin that talks.
A monument, a bill, a slogan, a law—
these are just attempts to carve his name into eternity.
So he doesn't mind how many farmers die, how many forests are razed, how many children are jailed—
as long as his face is remembered.
As long as he stays in the picture.
---
SECTION 4: RELIGION IS THE POLITICIAN’S BEST FRIEND
The fear of death also creates the priest.
And together, the priest and politician form a cartel.
The priest sells afterlife.
The politician sells legacy.
One promises heaven.
The other promises a nation with your name on it.
Both are hallucinations for cowards who cannot digest mortality.
So they work together.
The priest legitimizes the politician.
The politician funds the priest.
And together, they drug billions with the same lie:
“You will never die, as long as you belong to us.”
---
SECTION 5: THE FAMILY POLITICIAN
The politician isn’t always on TV.
There’s one in your own home.
The father who controls every decision because he's afraid of becoming useless.
The mother who emotionally manipulates her children because she's afraid of being abandoned.
The elder sibling who dominates others to feel important.
Every time someone creates dependency out of insecurity, they are doing politics.
Every time someone forces admiration through sacrifice, they are creating monuments within relationships.
They too are afraid of death.
Not of the body—but of irrelevance, loneliness, silence.
---
SECTION 6: THE TRUE REVOLUTION
A real revolution does not come from elections.
It comes when you stop fearing death.
The one who truly serves has no ambition.
The one who truly speaks has no agenda.
The one who truly lives has no name to protect.
This is why a hermit is more powerful than a king.
He has nothing to lose.
He does not need to be remembered.
He walks away from cameras, from microphones, from applause.
He lives like a tree—rooted, fruitful, and unbothered by history.
---
SECTION 7: THE CURE FOR POLITICS
You don’t cure politics by voting better people.
You cure politics by dying before you die.
Die to your desire to be important.
Die to your fear of being forgotten.
Die to your obsession with leaving a mark.
Then you won’t manipulate.
You won’t dominate.
You won’t gather followers.
You will live, fully and freely, knowing that the only real eternity is presence.
No statue lasts forever.
No book is immune to fire.
But kindness, truth, and humility—when lived deeply—outlive all.
---
CONCLUSION: THE POLITICIAN WHO NEVER STOOD FOR ELECTION
You don’t need a stage to be a politician.
Just a fear.
A fear that says: “If I don’t control others, I will vanish.”
But you were never meant to be remembered.
You were meant to love and leave.
To bloom, nourish, decay, and disappear—like every bird, tree, cloud, and breeze.
The more you try to be remembered, the less you live.
Let that be your revolution.
---
