Rewind: Who controls the political agenda

The ancient wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, Yudhishthira’s strategic restraint and Sun Tzu’s battlefield philosophy converge on one fundamental principle for the Opposition: never allow an adversary’s provocation to distract you from your purpose 

By Pendyala Mangala Devi

In a constitutional democracy, holding the treasury benches accountable is neither an act of political petulance nor a mere procedural formality. It is a sovereign mandate entrusted to the Opposition by the electorate. Whether inside the solemn halls of the legislature or out on the sweltering streets, the Opposition’s primary duty is to expose failures of governance and demand a strict accounting of public funds.

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Yet whenever governments are confronted with questions they cannot comfortably answer, one of the oldest tactics in statecraft comes into play: deflection through personal vilification. When pointed questions are raised about structural failures, the response is often not an explanation but manufactured outrage. Personal attacks, incendiary rhetoric and theatrical confrontations create a synthetic tempest in which the real crisis disappears from public view.

The distress of farmers, youth unemployment, erratic power supply and drinking-water shortages are pushed into the shadows. In their place, the news cycle becomes consumed by the far less consequential question of “who insulted whom”.

Such a strategy may satisfy the appetite of sensationalist media, but it strikes at the very heart of democratic accountability. Provoking an adversary to conceal administrative failures is an age-old political stratagem. Exposing failures of governance requires documentation, balance sheets, official records, and evidence that can withstand scrutiny. Personal abuse requires none of these. It needs only a loose tongue and an indifferent conscience.

The moment it responds to provocation with equal venom, the political battlefield changes. The debate moves away from governance and towards reciprocal abuse. Administrative failures disappear from the headlines, while political actors become performers in a manufactured spectacle. In the process, the Opposition surrenders its greatest constitutional opportunity: to corner the government on its record of governance.

That is why political restraint is not weakness. It is strategy. The crucible of leadership is not explosive rhetoric but composure under severe provocation. A serious political leader cannot permit an adversary’s tactics to derail the larger mission. The objective is not to win every argument created by the opponent; it is to ensure that the important argument remains one’s own.

Marcus Aurelius’ Warning

The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius offered a timeless warning against becoming consumed by external distractions:

Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbours and what they are doing… for this diverts you from paying attention to your own governing power. (Meditations, Book 3, Section 4)

His second observation is equally relevant to political conduct:

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.  (Meditations, Book 8, Section 47)

Gita’s Guidance

Centuries earlier, Lord Krishna had described the destructive chain reaction that begins when anger overwhelms reason:

From anger arises delusion; from delusion, confusion of memory; from clouded memory, the destruction of intellect; and from the ruin of intellect, a person perishes. (Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 2, Verse 63)

The political lesson is unmistakable. When fury replaces reason, purpose begins to disappear. When purpose disappears, strategic clarity evaporates. And when discernment is lost, a political leader can unknowingly become a pawn on the adversary’s chessboard. Restraint, therefore, should never be mistaken for impotence. It is a reservoir of strength that protects the larger mission.

The example of Yudhishthira offers another dimension to this principle. Humiliated before an imperial court and subsequently banished into the wilderness, he endured profound provocation without allowing immediate anger to destroy the larger objective. His endurance was not simply passive submission; it was a form of strategic discipline. He refused to sacrifice the larger struggle for the satisfaction of an immediate response.

That is the essence of statesmanship: conserving one’s strength, choosing the right moment and acting when the stakes are decisive.

The same principle lies at the heart of Krishna’s counsel to Arjuna

Your right is to action alone, never to its fruits; let not the fruit of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction. (Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 2, Verse 47)

For a modern political leader, the message is equally powerful: strip away personal vanity, refuse manufactured distractions, and remain faithful to the public interest.

This brings us to the most important strategic question in politics: Who controls the political agenda?

Sun Tzu’s Take

Sun Tzu understood that a commander who allows the enemy to determine the battlefield has already surrendered an important part of the initiative. His warning remains remarkably relevant:

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. (Chapter 1: Laying Plans)

And more importantly

Therefore, the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him. (Chapter 6: Weak Points and Strong)

The political equivalent is simple. An Opposition that spends its days responding to the government’s provocations allows the government to decide what the Opposition talks about. It may be loud, visible and constantly present in the news, yet remain strategically defensive. The alternative is to seize the initiative and force the government to answer questions that matter to citizens.

Sun Tzu put it succinctly

Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected. (Chapter 6: Weak Points and Strong)

And he offered perhaps the most important principle of strategic discipline

He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.  (Chapter 3: Attack by Stratagem)

Politics, like warfare, is not merely about fighting. It is about choosing the battlefield. Sun Tzu’s celebrated metaphor of water makes the point even more vividly:

Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. So, in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. (Chapter 6: Weak Points and Strong)

Water does not argue with a boulder. It flows around it. A disciplined political force must do the same. It should not waste its energy wrestling with manufactured controversies. It should flow around the diversionary walls erected by its opponent and move directly towards the unresolved realities of the people.

That means bringing politics back to the ground: agrarian distress, unemployment, economic insecurity, electricity, drinking water, public expenditure and the delivery of government promises. The ultimate test of political strategy, however, cannot be tactical cleverness alone. It must be public welfare.

Chanakya’s Neeti

Kautilya’s Arthashastra places the welfare of the people at the centre of statecraft:

In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness; in their welfare his welfare. Whatever pleases himself he shall not consider as good, but whatever pleases his subjects he shall consider as good. (Book 1, Chapter 19: The Duties of a King)

That principle also demands patience and judgement. Chanakya’s metaphor of the crane captures the importance of knowing when and where to act:

A wise man should control his senses like a crane and accomplish all his tasks by knowing the appropriate place, time, and his own strength. (Chanakya Niti, Chapter 6, Verse 18)

The lesson is not passivity. It is disciplined action. Machiavelli expressed a similar synthesis of caution and courage in The Prince

A prince, therefore, being compelled to know well how to use the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself from traps and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves. (Chapter 18)

A political leader must therefore possess the fox’s ability to recognise traps and the lion’s resolve to confront genuine failures of governance. Such strategic discipline has practical consequences.

Not every insult hurled deserves an immediate response. Immediate gratification may feel politically satisfying, but it can come at the expense of the larger narrative. Every political argument should instead be anchored in issues that affect ordinary citizens. Substantive policy claims must be confronted with verifiable facts and documented evidence. Deliberate and petty personal attacks can often be met more effectively with silence than with retaliation.

Choosing Own Battles

Most importantly, political organisations need to conduct a daily narrative audit. At the end of each day, one question should be asked: “Who drove public discourse today?”

If the answer is consistently the ruling party, then the Opposition must examine not merely what the government is doing, but how effectively the Opposition is choosing its own battles. Listening carefully to the grassroots, discarding frivolous controversies and directing public debate towards credible policy alternatives is not merely a political tactic. It is part of the constitutional responsibility of an Opposition.

Personal abuse cannot compensate for administrative failure. Staged histrionics cannot substitute for evidence. And political noise cannot permanently conceal unresolved questions of governance. The ancient wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, the strategic restraint embodied by Yudhishthira and the battlefield philosophy of Sun Tzu converge on one fundamental principle: Never allow your adversary’s provocation to displace your purpose.

Politics is neither an algorithmic race for social-media clicks nor an endurance test of daily press conferences. It is a contest for the public imagination. A political movement that spends its time asking, “What did our opponent say today?” remains trapped in perpetual defence. The more consequential question is: “What must the people deliberate tomorrow?” That is the difference between reacting to an agenda and creating one.

Reading the public pulse accurately and entering the arena when the political tide was ripe was a defining feature of K Chandrashekhar Rao’s political journey. His political method demonstrated the importance of patience, timing and agenda-setting. The movement for Telangana statehood itself required years of political persistence, public mobilisation and the ability to keep the central demand alive despite changing political circumstances.

The larger lesson extends beyond any individual leader or political party. Political power does not belong merely to the person who speaks the loudest. Nor does political initiative belong to the side that responds to every provocation. It belongs to those who can identify the issue that matters, build public attention around it and compel their adversaries to respond on that terrain.

The Opposition must therefore resist the temptation to fight every battle placed before it. It must decide which battles deserve its energy, which questions demand evidence and which provocations deserve silence. Because the central question in politics is not who shouted louder today. It is who decided what the people would discuss tomorrow.