Topic - "It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."


Is it necessary for political leaders to withhold information from the public? I strongly agree with the author but sometimes withholding the crucial information, whether it is classified documents or clandestine deals, from the public for leaders’ own benefit is counterproductive for a nation.

A very well known case for withholding information from the public for the safety of nation is The Rajiv Gandhi case in 1960’s. India and Pakistan are in war for more than 70 years till now. In the 1960’s Pakistan was secretly developed Hydrogen bomb with the help of technologically advanced allies. The development of a hydrogen bomb was direct threat to India. It was well known once Pakistan is capable to deploy Hydrogen Bomb, which can cause mass destruction similar to destruction done by bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it will intimate India which will further unrest Jammu and Kashmir, a state which Pakistan claims to be its territory since the partition between India and Pakistan. It was then, Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, signed a clandestine deal to develop an Hydrogen Bomb in order to offset the threats by Pakistan. The deal costed India millions of dollars and such a deal would be widely criticized not only by the opposition, whose main aim at the time was to oust the current government out of power, but also by the major developed and developing countries. When Pakistan developed the Bomb and tried to threaten India, they were astonished by the move of Indian leader. By keeping the matters only to himself and withholding any information from the public, Indian leader saved his nation from a huge catastrophe.

However, sometimes holding the information from the public for their own benefit, national leaders hinders growth of a nation. For example one need to look no further than recent Rafale deal in India. Rafale Deal is a deal in which several high quality combat helicopters worth USD 5.5 billion was given to an Indian company, which has no experience whatsoever in developing combat helicopters. Indian leaders not only withhold the complete information from the public but also escalated the price of each helicopter substantially from USD $100 millions to USD $250 millions. Indian is not a developed country and forgery of billions of dollars not only restricts the GDP of the country but also take away the opportunity away from millions of people across the country.

In sum, a national leader must from time to time withhold the information away from the public for the betterment of the nation. A certain amount of disingenuousness is necessary for the effective political leadership. A leader who relies chiefly on deception, however, betrays the democracy.