“When did cheating become clever?” I asked a friend the other day.
“Since winning became more important than honour,” he replied.
And that answer has stayed with me.
I watched the Tamil Nadu political drama unfolding and wondered what exactly is happening to our democracy. The Governor’s post was never meant to become a coaching centre for political manipulation.
It was meant to be dignified, balanced, and constitutional.
Ceremonial, many would say. Yet suddenly, when the party with the largest number of seats should normally be invited to form the government, new hurdles appear. New conditions emerge. Signed confirmations are demanded. Extra proof is sought. Invisible obstacles are quietly rolled onto the road.
And one cannot help asking whether every arm of governance is now being used not to protect democracy, but to protect victory.
There is a frightening difference between strategy and cheating.
Policies shape governments. Vision shapes nations. Leadership shapes history.
But cunning tricks shape only distrust.
What saddens me most is not even the act itself. It is the applause that follows. People clap as though cheating is intelligence. They grin as though manipulation is patriotism. They celebrate every shortcut as though morality itself has become outdated.
And slowly a nation begins teaching itself dangerous lessons.
A child watches. A young businessman watches. A college student watches. A future bureaucrat watches. And all of them quietly learn the same tutorial.
Winning matters. How you win does not.
That is when the decay begins.
Because once cheating becomes acceptable at the highest levels, it never remains there. It trickles downward into classrooms, offices, contracts, examinations, sports, journalism, policing, and finally into ordinary relationships between ordinary people.
Trust begins collapsing brick by brick.
The tragedy is that nations cannot survive long without trust. A country may survive poverty. A country may survive bad roads. A country may survive inflation. But a country cannot survive if people begin believing that nothing is fair anymore.
And the damage goes far beyond our borders.
The world watches nations carefully. Investors watch. Diplomats watch. Other governments watch. They may smile publicly, shake hands warmly, even hug closely, and issue polished statements, but countries are constantly judging whether another nation can be trusted.
And if the message repeatedly coming out is, “Do whatever it takes to win,” then one day the world will respond cautiously.
Because credibility is a nation’s invisible currency. Lose that, and even victory becomes expensive.
That is why this constant grand tutorial from Delhi worries me. The lesson being taught seems simple. Cheat and win.
But history has repeatedly shown that societies built on manipulation eventually collapse under the weight of their own wicked cleverness.
Because in the end, trust, not trickery, is what truly holds a nation together, and we have a great, huge deficit of that very honourable commodity…!