According to Osho, a country becomes truly democratic and “pollution‑free” by ending party politics altogether. Democracy is not choosing between poisons, but individually selecting trustworthy people without propaganda machines, experts, or televised make‑up. Raise citizens’ awareness and intelligence so parties aren’t needed; decentralize choice to persons, not labels, dissolving divisive nationalism that breeds political toxins.
Stop parties and propaganda; let awake citizens choose people, not labels, so politics stops being poison.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, most people, rightly or wrongly, equate democracy with the freedom to choose their politicians, yet you seem to envisage a country which is both democratic and pollution-free, because you see politicians as pollution. How is this possible?
Television has changed almost the whole political phenomenon. Before television, you were coming in contact with the real person. Now when you come in contact with a person, experts have decided his hairstyle, make-up, the color of his clothes. They have taught him how to walk, how to stand, how to look exactly into the eyes of the people; what to say, how to say it, when to make a gesture with his hand; when to almost shout, and when to almost whisper. Now it is in the hands of the experts to program him. Nixon was not ready for it, and I think any man who has any sense of integrity will not agree to all this nonsense. He is not an actor. But Kennedy followed the advice of the advisors. He came on the television very strong, very clear, standing the way a strong person stands, speaking the…
Osho, Shri Morarji Desai talks a lot about doing this and that in the national interest—then why doesn’t he do anything?
I know a gentleman. All his life he has contested elections, and all his life he has lost them. Contesting and losing—that is his entire story. Wherever an election is happening, of whatever kind—if he just hears of it, he stands. And every time he forfeits his deposit. I got to wondering what the matter was. And he’s a decent man—truthful, honest. I looked into it and discovered that it is precisely because of his decency, truthfulness, and honesty that he forfeits his deposit. In one election people asked him, “Why are you standing—To serve the people?” He said, “No, I want to taste the perks of office.” Now who will vote for such a man? Though what he said was true: “I have nothing to do with serving the people. I want to enjoy the sweetmeats of office. To hell with the people!” He spoke with perfect honesty—but such…
Osho, why does love for the Lord make one mad?
People ask me: Where is the heart? One day a young man asked, “Where exactly in the body is the heart located?” I said to him, “Your head is inside you; you are inside the heart.” The heart is not inside you. Do not mistake these lungs, pumping air, for the heart—they are only an apparatus for purifying air. You are within the heart. The heart is bigger than you. The head is smaller than you. The web of thoughts that spreads inside the head—that is yours, your private world. It is not the world of truth; it is the world of falsity, the world of dreams. The moment your energy slips out of the noose of the head— the moment you step outside the head—the courtyard of the Vast opens: the courtyard of your heart. It is as vast as the sky. Within you lies a sky as immense…
Osho, where are this country’s politicians taking the nation? What became of socialism?
This country can be healthy, prosperous, abundant. It has everything, and its people have great talent. But our assumptions are wrong. Then you weep and worry and ask: where are politicians taking the country? Ask yourself: whom did you choose? From that, you’ll know where they’ll take you. Politics should be in the hands of the young—fresh minds who still have the courage to experiment, the capacity to try, even the guts to make mistakes. But whom do you send into politics? Seventy-five-year-olds, eighty-year-olds, eighty-four-year-olds. Everywhere else retirement rules apply—at fifty-five, fifty-eight, or sixty. Why? Because after sixty, people generally go senile—everywhere else. But in politics? After sixty, suddenly they’re deemed wise. What a joke. Until you’re senile, you’re nobody; who will even recognize you? First question: have you gone senile? If yes, you’re fit to be a leader. Morarji Desai left the university sixty years ago. Whatever he learned…
If the whole country is rich and educated then it is impossible for idiots to become chief ministers and cabinet ministers. A person who is not himself medically educated becomes health minister, a person who has no knowledge of education cannot be accepted even as a primary school teacher becomes the education minister -- this is possible only if the poverty remains, uneducated people remain. Politicians are the worst people as far as man is concerned because they suffer psychologically from inferiority complex. They want to prove that they are something big, Alexander the Great. A person who does not suffer from inferiority does not want to prove that he is big or great. He is simple and humble, and he is what he is; there is no question of proving.