Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Principle of Life
The possible versus the impossible.
After the death of Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, former Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister by the Congress Party. But there was a never-ending conflict between Mrs. Gandhi and Mr. Morarji Desai, because the latter aspired to prime ministership himself. After the 1967 elections, he was made Deputy Prime Minister, but this did not satisfy him, for he considered this office beneath him. In this way, the conflict between the two leaders went on. The former Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Mr. l.K. Gujral, writes that in 1969, Mrs. Gandhi offered to make Morarji Desai president. But it seems that when this offer was conveyed to him by Mr. Gujral, he retorted, “Why not she herself?” (The Times of India, 12 July, 1987). In other words, why couldn’t she let him be Prime Minister!
Later, Mr. Desai left the Congress Party, but still worked towards becoming Prime Minister. Finally, after the March’ 77 elections, he did, with the victory of the Janata Party, become Prime Minister. But it was only for a short period, and he was soon faced with a political decline from which he was never to recover.
His political failure has been attributed to his straining after the impossible. Had he realized that the most prudent course for him was the acceptance of presidentship, he might well have saved himself from the humiliation, failure and descent into oblivion which he ultimately suffered. As it was, his pursuance of the impossible deprived them even of what had been at one time within the realms of the possible.
While striving towards a worthy objective is in itself a laudable activity, it should first be ascertained whether that objective is genuinely within one’s reach. In persistently straining after something which is ultimately unattainable, one not only wastes valuable time and energy, but also steers one’s course quite irreversibly away from objectives which in the long run could prove more fruitful and more satisfying. What has to be avoided is the initial, egotistical error of judgement which launches one on an over-ambitious course.