The importance of second chances

Itrsquos not easy being the leader of a country Yoursquore supposed to represent the hopes and dreams of millions of people so a lot of them tend to look up to you They need to respect what they see and believe that you know what yoursquore doing which means you have to be a pretty good actor They think of you as one of their more accomplished countrymen because misogyny as someone supposedly better educated more intelligent and possibly even kinder than everyone else They want you to have integrity and good morals to be empathetic and unbiased to not embarrass them when you open your mouth in public Naturally very few politicians manage to rise to the occasion Almost none of them tick all the necessary boxesThis rule doesnrsquot apply to the whole world though Take America for example The nice thing about America is how it somehow manages to drum up support even for those who donrsquot come close to meeting the required criteria for good governance Itrsquos why Donald Trump is lucky hersquos an AmericanFor those who have been too stressed about life in India to look at whatrsquos been happening on the other side of the world herersquos what Irsquom referring to itrsquos been obvious for a while that Trump is the only forerunner opposing the current president of the US in this yearrsquos upcoming election The former host of the television series The Apprentice has been given another shot at returning to the White House four years after he lost it His humiliating single term is now a distant memory as a lot of enthusiastic citizens prepare for the possibility of living through it all just one more time Isnrsquot nostalgia wonderfulI assumed a lot of people outside America must have written Trump off a while ago because to be honest itrsquos hard to think of a more embarrassing politician in our lifetime And yet some Americans begged to disagree abandoning facts in favour of fiction instead These kind folk now believe their 77yearold former presidentmdashalso the first in their countryrsquos history to be criminally chargedmdashdeserves to be a presidential nominee once more This despite him facing 91 charges across four separate cases along with a series of civil cases Trump has also been found guilty of rape in addition to allegations of sexual misconduct that have followed him for decades but that hasnrsquot been enough to dissuade them either Itrsquos the kind of support that incompetent nonAmerican criminals everywhere can only dream aboutThe lesson we should all take from this is about forgiveness We have to accept that politicians can be awful inconsiderate incompetent and corrupt but we must remember that they are also human beings worthy of second chances We must look at America and adopt some of the practices it takes for granted I must admit we have begun taking a few right steps in this direction which is why so many people accused of crime have managed to be rehabilitated in Parliament over the past decade or so but therersquos still a long way to go before we come close to replicating Americarsquos largesseTo give horrible politicians second and even third chances says a lot about a country It tells the world that while a country may not have the most intelligent people it has citizens who place delusion over reality and common sense These are not virtues to be laughed at in our cynical timesThe way things stand in India today itrsquos still hard to imagine this country behaving the way the Republicans of America have Itrsquos impossible to foresee a time when we will be compelled to elect a leader devoid of intelligence compassion integrity education kindness morality or good taste a clown obsessed with being photographed for endless and carefully orchestrated PR campaigns If we were ever in this position compelled to choose someone who embarrasses us in public by saying the most inane things possible Irsquom sure we would laugh the candidate out of the roomI look forward to a more forgiving India a country that can find within itself the ability to support even a leader with a dubious past one propped up by crony capitalism or accused of selling public assets while pretending to be a man of the people I wonder if we will ever be able to do it which is why I believe we have so much to learn from AmericaHope is everythingWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereiraSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper