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In literature, from Dante’s flatterers and Dickens’s Uriah Heep to the workers at the fashion magazine Runway sucking up to its abusive editor, Miranda Priestly, constantly seeking outrageous displays of ingratiation in Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, we have a fair representation of this slippery breed that stalk us everywhere in real life. If the reptilian Uriah Heep happens to be one of literature’s most repulsive sycophants, royal courts were flattery’s most famous laboratories, perfected by masters such as Cleopatra, Shakespeare, and Disraeli. A very interesting book of potted history titled In Praise of Flattery by Willis Goth Regier (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) chronicles how flattery flourished in imperial China and classical Greece, and how the infestation of the Roman empire with flatterers made Tacitus to note that “flattery is the worst poison of true affection (“blanditiae sunt pessimum veri adfectus venenum”). The basic Greek corpus includes Aesop (sixth century BC), to whom we owe the stereotype of flattering fox; Plato (circa 427–347 BC), whose description of a flatterer as “a fearsome and most pernicious creature” might inadvertently and “co-incidentally” refer to some modern-day toadies; and Plutarch (circa AD 45– 120), whose “How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend” is the core text of flattery studies. Regier cites Athenaeus (circa AD 170–circa 230) as the record-keeper of the names, gains, and failures of famous flatterers of the ancient world: Tithymallus, Chairephon, Moschion. Those who exercise flattery and sycophancy – from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, who initiated the “Heil Hitler” salute and single-handedly created the prototype for subsequent versions of state-sponsored sycophancy, and the obsequious Indian President who in his gratitude for his leader for giving him the occupancy of Rashtrapati Bhavan, infamously announced that he would gladly "sweep the ground" that his leader walked upon, to the Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar declaring himself as a willing slave of the Gandhi family, to Dev Kanth Barua, president of India’s ruling Congress in the mid-1970s, who coined the cloying apothegm ‘India is Indira and Indira is India’, to Avadhut Wagh, Maharashtra’s BJP spokesperson, who called Modi the 11th incarnation of Lord Vishnu – are described in colourful pejorative terms such as apple-polisher, bootlicker, brownnoser, fawner, flunky, lickspittle, suck-up, toady, toadeater and worse. To this holy pantheon, quite a clutch of new names was added recently when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee received the Bangla Academy Award for her "relentless literary pursuit". The award, introduced this year by Sahitya Academi to pay tribute to the best writers of West Bengal was presented to Banerjee for her book Kabita Bitan. The award came in for bitter criticism and triggered a few resignations. Many said the award was undeserved as the anthology contained no literary merit. It is possible to argue that high culture’s harsh critique of popular or mass culture is a plea for the restoration of an elitist order that often betrays a resistance to lowbrow and middlebrow content. But the argument flies in the face of the quality of the jury under the watch of whom the award was apparently given. As stalwarts of Bengali literature such as veteran novelist Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (who got Sahitya Akademi award in 1989 for his novel Manabjamin), poet Joy Goswami (who got the same award in 2000 for his anthology Pagli tomar sange), and novelist Abul Bashar (recipient of many awards as well) were involved, the critics said that the "Kavi Pranam" event organised by the West Bengal government’s Information and Culture Department on the occasion of the birth anniversary of legendary poet Rabindranath Tagore was not only a high watermark of sycophancy and nepotism but also was eminently risible for prizing clout over literary merit. Among the defenders, it was the state education minister and president of Bangla Academy Bratya Basu who tried to tamely explain how the consideration of literary merit was ‘relative’ and how even Dylan and Tagore, both Nobel laureates in literature, had to face questions to justify the award. As coteries of agents and managers, execs and moneymen, publicists and journalists, gawkers and sycophants swirl all around our politicians, there hangs a cautionary tale in a country suffused with a culture of sycophancy. This culture is unparalleled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country. Though it has blown the Congress away, the cult of Modi is built around it. Other political parties might draw a lesson.  Prasenjit Chowdhury is a commentator on geopolitical affairs, development and cultural issues, besides being an occasional essayist and a reviewer of books and films The views expressed are personal This Independence Day, get Flat 50% Off on Annual Subscription Plans Enjoy Unlimited Digital Access with HT Premium Grab the Offer Now Already Subscribed? Sign In SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Topics ht exclusive narendra modi mamata banerjee + 1 more ht exclusive narendra modi mamata banerjee

A very interesting book of potted history titled In Praise of Flattery by Willis Goth Regier (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) chronicles how flattery flourished in imperial China and classical Greece, and how the infestation of the Roman empire with flatterers made Tacitus to note that “flattery is the worst poison of true affection (“blanditiae sunt pessimum veri adfectus venenum”).

The basic Greek corpus includes Aesop (sixth century BC), to whom we owe the stereotype of flattering fox; Plato (circa 427–347 BC), whose description of a flatterer as “a fearsome and most pernicious creature” might inadvertently and “co-incidentally” refer to some modern-day toadies; and Plutarch (circa AD 45– 120), whose “How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend” is the core text of flattery studies. Regier cites Athenaeus (circa AD 170–circa 230) as the record-keeper of the names, gains, and failures of famous flatterers of the ancient world: Tithymallus, Chairephon, Moschion.

Those who exercise flattery and sycophancy – from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, who initiated the “Heil Hitler” salute and single-handedly created the prototype for subsequent versions of state-sponsored sycophancy, and the obsequious Indian President who in his gratitude for his leader for giving him the occupancy of Rashtrapati Bhavan, infamously announced that he would gladly "sweep the ground" that his leader walked upon, to the Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar declaring himself as a willing slave of the Gandhi family, to Dev Kanth Barua, president of India’s ruling Congress in the mid-1970s, who coined the cloying apothegm ‘India is Indira and Indira is India’, to Avadhut Wagh, Maharashtra’s BJP spokesperson, who called Modi the 11th incarnation of Lord Vishnu – are described in colourful pejorative terms such as apple-polisher, bootlicker, brownnoser, fawner, flunky, lickspittle, suck-up, toady, toadeater and worse.

To this holy pantheon, quite a clutch of new names was added recently when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee received the Bangla Academy Award for her "relentless literary pursuit". The award, introduced this year by Sahitya Academi to pay tribute to the best writers of West Bengal was presented to Banerjee for her book Kabita Bitan. The award came in for bitter criticism and triggered a few resignations. Many said the award was undeserved as the anthology contained no literary merit.

It is possible to argue that high culture’s harsh critique of popular or mass culture is a plea for the restoration of an elitist order that often betrays a resistance to lowbrow and middlebrow content. But the argument flies in the face of the quality of the jury under the watch of whom the award was apparently given. As stalwarts of Bengali literature such as veteran novelist Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (who got Sahitya Akademi award in 1989 for his novel Manabjamin), poet Joy Goswami (who got the same award in 2000 for his anthology Pagli tomar sange), and novelist Abul Bashar (recipient of many awards as well) were involved, the critics said that the "Kavi Pranam" event organised by the West Bengal government’s Information and Culture Department on the occasion of the birth anniversary of legendary poet Rabindranath Tagore was not only a high watermark of sycophancy and nepotism but also was eminently risible for prizing clout over literary merit. Among the defenders, it was the state education minister and president of Bangla Academy Bratya Basu who tried to tamely explain how the consideration of literary merit was ‘relative’ and how even Dylan and Tagore, both Nobel laureates in literature, had to face questions to justify the award.

As coteries of agents and managers, execs and moneymen, publicists and journalists, gawkers and sycophants swirl all around our politicians, there hangs a cautionary tale in a country suffused with a culture of sycophancy. This culture is unparalleled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country. Though it has blown the Congress away, the cult of Modi is built around it. Other political parties might draw a lesson. 

Prasenjit Chowdhury is a commentator on geopolitical affairs, development and cultural issues, besides being an occasional essayist and a reviewer of books and films

The views expressed are personal

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