The art of the political novel: How politicians differ from the rest of us

Several years ago I saw a British TV serial called House of Cards. Needless to say, it is vastly superior to the American version that simply went on and on and on. The BBC thing was just three hours long, compared to over 50 of the American one.

One day while looking for something else on Amazon, I chanced upon second-hand copies of the original three books on which these serials were based. They are by Michael Dobbs and were published 30 years ago. As political novels, or novels about politics, go they are unmatched, at least according to me.

Quite apart from the quality of writing, which is superb they are — as blurb writers would say — “merciless, pitiless, and brutal” in the way they “shine a torch” on the way British politicians function. Political survival and career advancement are pursued to the total exclusion of everything else, including ordinary decency.

Reading these books you realise why politicians are what they are and how they differ from the rest of us. No jungle is fiercer, no reward more bountiful — and no failure more certain. 

In the end, they all fail. Yet politics draws people of a certain sort as surely as the flame attracts the moth.

Some months ago I had wondered in this column as to why Indians haven’t got round to this genre, at least in English. They may have in one of the Indian languages. I don’t know.

The surprising thing is that Indian politics provides much richer pickings than British politics. The contrast is exactly like the one between Indian and Western food — especially British food.

I don’t think Indian politicians have affairs with each other’s wives quite as regularly as which the British seem to do, but surely there must be other differences that any good writer can explore. I think I will.

As it happens, I did write a short story about our prime minister’s lawnmower — four of my other short stories have been published, by the way — but a very young editor said it was rubbish. Maybe I will turn it into a full-length novel.

Nyuk, nyuk, as Fred Flintstone might have said.

Mr Dobbs has a PhD in from the Fletcher School and may well have overlapped with our own Shashi Tharoor. After being a columnist, etc. he became an active politician and Margaret Thatcher’s equivalent of the West Indian fast bowler Michael Holding — Whispering Death. A British newspaper called him the “baby faced hit man of Westminster”.

When you read Mr Dobbs, you realise that in political thrillers you don’t need a plot. You just need an objective.

The rest is just a series of incidents, what TV serials call episodes, designed to make ordinary people most uncomfortable by the sheer lack of basic morality. The end justifies all means including, if need be, the murder of those who could prove to be troublesome. The trick, as in other things, is not to get caught.

Mr Dobbs also wryly brings out the true nature of power, both political and financial. Both are objectives-driven. As long as the objectives don’t clash all is well. But when they do it is always political power that wins. 

To given an example, Rajiv Gandhi didn’t quite know how to wield political power. And when he tried it was a case of too late and too little. He lost the election.

Another thing Mr Dobbs brings out with great clarity is that good intentions are a strict no-no in politics. They get you absolutely nowhere. Good outcomes are a bonus if they happen but the main thing is to win, at any cost.

Everything is political, and measured in just one metric: Will it win me votes or will it lose me votes; and how many. There is no other consideration at all.

From where Mr Dobbs saw things, he also seems convinced that the media is there only to be manipulated with the sole purpose of causing political damage to opponents. But that’s not quite the surprise, which is that British political journalists are always looking to strike Faustian bargains. 

There’s also the utter cynicism with which the governments view Parliament, foreigners, women, activists and the rest of the clutter of democracy. I wonder if Indian politicians also talk about these groups in the way Mr Dobbs describes them in his novels.

It would not at all be surprising if they did. We have some stray examples so far but chances are the attitude common to male preserves is pretty pervasive.