Government – Parts Per Billion

The Utility of Human Life and Morality

Why doesn’t Batman kill all his villains once for all? Why the sentence passed by judicial systems in certain heinous and extraordinary crimes feel unjust for the pain victim went through? How one can tell that given person was right or wrong when he/she had no intent of doing it? Can you just look at the end consequences of the actions and decide right or wrong for such scenes? Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism tried to answer some of these questions but it revealed certain flaws in our ways of judgement. Even though hedonism and utilitarian philosophy create an objective model of morality, they fail to address the subjective and human aspect of any moral discussion. It reveals that the purpose of living is not mere happiness but self-improvement thereby mutual and overall improvement.

How to judge morality and its impact on human life?

The Moral Dilemma

A healthy sense of good and bad makes a society livable. There are some special, rare events that happen in the society we live which challenge our idea of what is good and what is bad. There are uncountable offenses and also in varying types which create problem of who should actually be punished and what should be the punishment.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi

If this is really the case, the law and order should punish the victim in such a way that it prohibits the future perpetrators to not do such crimes again. But again, as this above mentioned quote goes if the punishment given for the crime is equally dangerous then what exactly are we trying to establish through such punishment?

It’s like that scenario where murdering a murderer creates a new murderer so the net number of murderers in the society remain the same. An Italian philosopher called Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria had given a thought on this. In his book ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’ he discusses that if the punishments grow on crueler and crueler the net mindset of people also grows crueler. It’s like how water levels itself irrespective of the depths. The baseline of what is right and wrong furthermore what is more wrong and what is more right shifts up. Crueler and crueler crimes reduce the sensibility of people of that society. This could be one reason why people always argue that the judicial system does not provide equivalent punishment as a justice to the victims of certain heinous, exceptional cases of crimes. (Although there are many other factors to make such decisions.)

“In proportion as punishments become crueler, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height with that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible; and the force of the passions still continuing, in the space of a hundred years the wheel terrifies no more than formerly the prison. That a punishment may produce the effect required, it is sufficient that the evil it occasions should exceed the good expected from the crime, including in the calculation the certainty of the punishment, and the privation of the expected advantage. All severity beyond this is superfluous, and therefore tyrannical.”
Cesare Beccaria, Of the Mildness of Punishments from ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’

In similar spirit, the relationship between Batman and Joker can be understood. Joker never cares about killing people he will try to stretch the limits of batman in every possible sense where innocent lives are at stake. Batman has one solution to stop all this – to kill the Joker. But with a high moral ground Batman would never kill Joker. What is the motivation behind such character design of Batman. Batman knows that killing Joker would solve the problem once for all. Believe me, this is not just a fictional comic book scenario. The reality that we live in has uncountable such scenarios where exactly same decision dilemmas occur.

The famous trolley problem also points to somewhat similar moral dilemma. Where should the trolley be directed if one track has single person and another has 5 people tied to the track? Nobody wants blood on their hands.

But the same trolley problem becomes interesting if you start adding additional attributes to the people who are on track.

What if the single person tied to the track is a scientist with the cure for cancer and the track with five people are criminals? Then definitely you would kill the five criminals instead of the single scientist.

Did you notice what change made us to decide faster? The moment we understood the consequences of our actions we had the clarity of what is right and what is wrong. Our moral compass pointed to North the moment we foresaw the consequences of our actions.

The foundation of some of the principles of morality are based on similar ideas. Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham’s an English Philosophers ideas have contributed to the ideas of morality for humanity, especially when we are talking about the human society as a whole. The ideas put by Jeremy Bentham also faced severe criticism, we will see those in detail too. But the key intention of my exploration is to understand how we create the meaning of Morality and how subjectivity, objectivity totally change the way we perceive morality. In the end we may reach to rock bottom questioning the morality itself to be nonexistent – and if morality is non-existent then what separates human beings from animals? (I hope to enter in this territory with some optimism, I don’t know where will it end.)

Utilitarianism

As I already explained in the trolley problem that by adding one simple, short part of information shifted our moral compass in (supposedly) proper direction. What did this information add in the dilemma to make it solvable?

The answer is the foresight of consequence. Once you saw the consequence it leads to you got the hold of what is right and what is wrong. You decided one side to be right and other one to be wrong. This foresight of consequence helped you to weigh the ‘right’-ness of your decision.

Utilitarianism is based on the measurement of morals based on the consequences of the actions you take. What is the other side of taking actions? It is ‘the intent’. This is where the fun game begins.

Many philosophers are always fighting over morals based on the intent of the person and the consequences of the actions they take. For example, thinking of murder (pardon my thinking) makes me less of convict than really murdering someone. My thinking has not led to the loss of the person I hate. Utilitarianism thus calls out for the construct of morality based on the actual actions and their consequences; it’s like saying ‘what a man is more about what he does instead of what he thinks’.

Hedonism, Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham

Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.
Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham an English philosopher contributed to the utilitarian ideas of morality. He was not well appreciated in his home country due to the misalignment of his ideas of socio-political reforms with the British sovereignty of those times. The French translation of his works on law, governance gave him popularity in Frenchmen. Bentham was one of the people who pushed the political reforms during French revolution.

While reading Joseph Priestly’s Essay on the First Principles of Government, Bentham came across the idea of “greatest happiness for the greatest number” which motivated him to expand the ideas of utilitarianism.

Priestly brought the idea of “Laissez-faire” (‘allow to do’ in French)- a policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society. Joseph Priestly developed his ideas of politics, economics and government based on the ideas created by Adam Smith (Author of the Wealth of Nations – the holy grail of classical Economics).

The Greek philosopher called Epicurus was the supporter, creator of hedonism. Hedonism defines ethics to pleasure or pain. According to hedonism that which gives pleasure is morally good and that which give pain is morally wrong. The idea behind hedonism is the aversion of pain to live an undisturbed life because anyways this all won’t make sense once you are dead. According to Epicurus – fear of death, retribution is pushing people to collect more wealth, more power thereby causing more painful life. The collection of wealth, power is done thinking that they can avert the death but that is not the reality. So, worrying about the death sucks out the pleasure of living the life which itself is equivalent of death.

Non fui, fui, non-sum, non-curo
(“I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care”)
Epicurus

So, epicurean hedonistic morality tries to maximize the pleasure. The other end of this idea is that if everyone tries to maximize their own pleasure (egoistic hedonism) wouldn’t it disturb others?

If I want to listen to a song on loud speaker while bothering my neighbors, what is the moral standpoint here?

The answer is the overall good of the system. So, if you neighbor also wants to listen music loud and overall loud music is good for the group then we are morally right to play loud music. (Just pray that the group has same music interests!)

So, Jeremy Bentham is known to rejuvenate this ancient philosophy of egoistic hedonism through his philosophy of utilitarianism.

The basic idea behind Utilitarianism is to maximize the utility of anything, value of anything. The utility can be increased by doing what is right which can be done by doing what gives more pleasure or by avoiding those things which increase or give pain.

Utility is a property which tends

To produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness
To prevent happening of mischief, pain, evil or happiness

So, the right action is the one that produces and/ or maximizes overall happiness. Please understand that the word “overall” is important for Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Because from selfish point of views, what is pleasurable for one may not be pleasurable for others. (This is also where the certain philosophical problems of Utilitarianism are hiding, save this point for later.)

To solve this bottleneck of clarity, there are two types of pleasure in human life – one is happiness from senses, physical experiences and one is from intellect. The intellectual happiness is higher than the pleasure from senses. So, on personal moral dilemmas these two attributes can solve the problem.

All good on personal level but what about the moral decisions for the group, for society? Here, Bentham solved the moral dilemma by using the idea of “greater good for all”. When we don’t agree on what makes us happy together, making sacrifices in your happiness to make others happy is the solution. (Keep this idea parked in your mind.)

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters – pain and pleasure. They govern us in all we do, all we say and all we think.”
Jeremy Bentham

Felicific Calculus – Measuring happiness

Jeremy Bentham is known as the Issac Newton of the Morality for developing the felicific calculus/ hedonistic calculus. Bentham pointed out the key factors which affect the net happiness and using this factors’ effect as a whole, one can quantify the happiness.

Following are the factors which affect the happiness:

Intensity – how strong is the pleasure from the given action?
Duration – how long does the happiness remain from given action?
Certainty – what is the likelihood of given pleasure to occur?
Propinquity – how soon/ immediate is the occurrence of the pleasure?
Fecundity – what is the possibility that this pleasure will also lead to the newer pleasure(s)?
Purity – what is the change that this pleasure will not bring some opposite sensation?
Extent – how many people are affected?

If one considers these factors and the principle to maximize the communal happiness, most of the social moral dilemmas can be effectively solved.

So, according to this felicific calculus,

Batman should kill the Joker for the greater good of the Gotham
The trolley should go over the group/ person which creates more pain for the society
Baby Hitler should be killed once we get the chance to travel back in time

You must appreciate the clarity which the felicific calculus brings. This clarity is very important for the policymakers, politicians while deciding the fate of the group, state, nation as a whole.

Now a simple question –

If batman keeps on killing the villains, won’t he become the greatest killer of them all? What would differentiate Batman from other villains?

What would happen if you were given false information about the nature of the people tied on track while riding that trolley? Could your wrong decision be undone? If it was the wrong decision then now ‘you’ are morally wrong, with the blood of the innocents.

You would kill baby Hitler only because you have vision that this baby will grow up to be the mass murderer tyrant. The mass murder hasn’t happened yet. So, now you are the killer of a ‘now’ innocent baby.

Maintaining same emotion, now you would appreciate why even for a strong judicial system giving capital punishment for rapists, terrorists is difficult morally. You would solve the problem for now because the act has been already done, the consequences have already happened (which is why moral judgement is effective as it relies on the consequences). Killing the perpetrators or punishing them with equal pain would definitely bring peace of mind using the principles of morality but that also degrades the morality of innocents who fell down from that morality. It is not matter of what one deserves because what bad happened to them, it is about how less human you will become once you perform that act of punishment.

Recall the quote of Beccaria in the early part of my discussion.

Killing joker will create fear among other villains but it also creates chance for the creation of even dangerous villain in future.

Killing baby Hitler doesn’t guarantee prevention of World War and mass murders, as our personalities are the result of our surroundings – another Hitler-like person would have emerged in such given circumstances. (I honestly don’t know if he/she would be worse or less harsh than the original one but you get the point – conditions anyways would have created another cruel person.)

Jumping out of the trolley seems the best way to run away from the pain of murder of other unknown people (joking). The trolley dilemma remains dilemma.

Also, the felicific calculus allows pain for small groups for the betterment/ pleasure of the bigger society. For example, according to this utilitarian idea killing few healthy convicted prisoners to save lives of many innocent people by harvesting the prisoners’ organ is justified. It is for the good in the end.

You see where this goes?

See the level to which any human or a group could go if they start justifying their moral rightness using these ideas. Using these principles any big group can overpower the minorities in morally right way. It is just a matter of time that the felicific calculus principles would get exploited for other “immoral” gains.

That is exactly why many people criticized the felicific calculus saying that a pig laying in the mud for his whole life would be happiest than a human being (Socrates to be specific) if Bentham’s calculus is used to decide morality.

In a crude way, there are two type of Utilitarianism which help to solve the problem to certain extent, but it is not a complete solution:

Act Utilitarianism – to act for the greater good of all
Rule Utilitarianism – to set rules in such way that no one inherently gets the pain or everyone is happy because actions and their consequences are bound by certain set rules in first place now

Happiness is not the ‘only’ and the ultimate goal – the limitations of Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarian Philosophy

What people were not ‘happy’ with Jeremy Bentham’s felicific calculus was that it made humans more like machines and very objective. People don’t always want happiness for their or the group’s greater good. Exercising daily, reducing fat-sugar maybe painful but that guarantees healthy, illness free long life. Doing drugs isolates the person from pain but it impacts the long-term physical and mental health of the person. Hardships and pain make people to reach their difficult goals which is what is the real and ultimate happiness for them.

Happiness is not always the goal of life, if one is completely tangled in the pleasures of life and if everyone is having same mentality then in the end no one will be happy, because as a group we all would never agree on what makes us happy; different environments in which we grew, our personal experiences, our upbringing, our motivations prevent us from creating a common definition of happiness.

The subjective factor of pleasure or pain is not present in Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Building further upon that, the victim who has suffered from the morally wrong action will only be satisfied when he/she gets justice, not when they are made happier than their perpetrators. (This justice must again not be mechanical and objective like the felicific calculus.)

One more flaw of the Bentham’s utilitarianism is the imbalance between personal scenarios and the communal scenarios. In most cases, it demands personal sacrifice irrespective of their subjective morality for the betterment of the group. (that is exactly how many past cruel dictators have justified their moral correctness on their acts against the minorities.)

A British philosopher, Bernard Williams presented a thought experiment to highlight such flaw of the Utilitarianism.

In this thought experiment:

A botanist on his South American expedition is ordered by the cruel regime soldiers to kill one of the Indian tribe people. If the botanist fails to kill one Indian the soldiers would execute all of the tribe members.

So, if we implement utilitarian principles, then the botanist should kill one Indian to save the remaining all. That is morally right.

But on the other hand, one must also understand that the botanist has nothing to do with the cruel regime and even with the indigenous tribe members. He is under no moral obligation to do anything. The consequences are in such a way that whatever he will do he will be called morally wrong. Which in the end is wrong.

The utilitarian philosophy neglects this subjectivity and consequentialism while we are deciding morality of anything.

Maybe that is also why even when we have all the rules in place, penal code in place for all types of offenses, similar crimes – we have a judge – a subjective, consequential observer to grant the final justice.

You must understand that the discussion does not want to pose Utilitarianism as completely wrong idea. The intent of this discussion is to understand how to de-clutter a complex moral scenario and how to inject subjectivity in it so that the correct person will get the justice in the end. As we are human beings and not machines, every day brings new subjective scenarios with new subjective moral dilemmas. Direct implementation of utilitarianism may bring in the transparency in the moral puzzle but it is at the expense of oversimplification and loss of personal subjectivity, consequential personal point of view and also freedom of person to exist.

The ways in which Utilitarianism brings immediate clarity by elimination of some important subjective aspects is dangerous and limits the judgement of real morality. Friedrich Nietzsche had warned new philosophers in his book beyond good and evil about the philosophies which create such “immediate certainties” like Utilitarian philosophy creates-

“The belief in “immediate certainties” is a moral naivete which does honor to us philosophers; but – we have now to cease being “merely moral” men!”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Conclusion – If not happiness then what is the goal of being human?

Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism and the felicific calculus can help to decide the morality of what is good for all but it ignores the presence and worth of personal integrity, the well being of the minorities, subjectivity of the person in given consequences. It by default eliminates the possibility of humans remaining human beings instead it attributes them as the machine maximizing a targeted outcome (which is pleasure here).

So, the question remains – If we are not meant to maximize pleasure during our tenure in life because in the end after death there will not be anything to experience or gain happiness – if our existence and final purpose does not align with being happy then what exactly is the purpose of being a human being?

Based on my understanding on what many great people have commented about the purpose of life, I found that most of them point to remaining the human being you always were. I am not saying that the personality should remain the same, rather it should change and keep on upgrading itself till the end but the core should remain same or it should not degrade at least.

Some wrong events, injustice, oppression, cruelty will make you suffer, but that should also not vilify your human spirit. Once we let go the pursuit of happiness and chase the goal of being a better human being (or at least remain the human being you are) we can fulfill the purpose of our lives and also make other people’s lives better.

Once you will let go of such utilitarian, mechanistic setups of morality you will realize that people don’t need gods, religions, governments, judicial systems to keep in the check of right and wrong. Our inner compass is more than enough to take care of what makes us human beings, this inner compass is not about what is right and wrong, for me it is about what better version of yourself you would become if you act in that certain way. It takes care of what you are thinking and what would be the consequences of actions thereby resolving the dilemma of morality which got separated on the basis of either intent or the consequences.

I am highlighting the importance of inner personal human compass because the rules designed to keep morality in check would always need revision and the utilitarian philosophy would wait for the consequences to happen to decide the morality. The goal of human struggle to improve their current version to a better one does not need either of the metrics to decide the morality.

Imagine what the world would become if everyone started appreciating this inner human compass!

(For now, we can only imagine, but I am optimistic on this.)

P.S. –

Even though the Utilitarian philosophy had many flaws, Jeremy Bentham contributed largely to bring in new political reforms, improve governance, establish penal codes in judicial systems, define sovereignty, reduce the influence of religious institutions on the lives of people and governments. His works were strategically maligned by some lobbies to lessen the impact of his other notable works. He was the proponent of liberty and freedom from religious influences on lives of people. The pushed for the establishment of a secular educational institute in London – now famously known as University College London. Jeremy Betham’s fully clothed wax statue containing his original skeleton remains in the entrance hall of the University main building upon his request.

KGF and Plato’s ‘The Republic’

“There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.” – Plato, The Republic

KGF Chapter 2 was one of the most anticipated movies by Indian audience. The movie is filled with some great moments, a good performance from the whole cast especially the superstar Yash and most importantly the story line and characters have created significant impact.

Obviously, the wow factor of the movie is the character development of Rocky. From being an orphan to being kid doing boot polish to a gang leader to killing the most vicious person on record to becoming world’s richest man and most powerful man thereby the whole journey is mesmerizing.

I had only one fear about the story development while watching the Chapter Two which can be expressed as follows:

The whole ambition of becoming world’s richest man was a personal ambition of Rocky. His only goal was first of all very personal, it did not specifically involve doing good for the people. In the later stages, while planning on to kill Garuda, Rocky is exposed to the unfitting environment of gold mines and the unjust, cruel system forced on the oppressed people. Rocky works under the hood to reach to Garuda killing him in an absolutely dramatic environment and in front of the same crowd which was very scared, terrified by mere presence of Garuda.

Given that Rocky was more of a criminal and somewhat similar to Garuda in terms of terror, cruelty. I had a fear for the story that what if Rocky just replaces Garuda and becomes the same tyrant as Garuda was. Even though he frees the crowd from the terror of Garuda, his intentions are also not pure already as he wishes the same thing as Garuda and all that he wanted was the Gold of KGF and power that comes with it. It is just that KGF gets another Tyrant with some more emotions and personal attachment.

And the story actually developed to this stage, Rocky’s father like figure Khasim makes his thought clear to Rocky that the way in which he is enforcing to dig more gold makes him more of a same person as Garuda was.

But the story writers have done their job perfectly here. Actually, there is more similarity in the character of Garuda and Rocky than there are differences. Garuda is as ambitious as Rocky is, both are physically and mentally strong, both have intimidating presence, both create strong influence on the surrounding people, both want to become the richest and the most powerful people in the whole world.

What differentiates Rocky is that his ambitions are more attached to his mother and the suffering she went through. Hence, when people ask Rocky the reason behind so much greed, he points his finger to the tomb of his mother. Whatever decisions he is taking no matter how cruel and unjust they may seem they are justifiable just because he wants to fulfill his mother’s wish.

My fear was that Rocky becomes as tyrant as the previous tyrants of KGF were nonetheless he becomes the same person as his predecessors were.

The whole ensemble and development thereby degradation of ‘our antihero’ into a tyrant reminds me about the regime explained by Plato in his book called Republic. The ideologies of Plato’s five types/regimes of Government. These regimes are namely Aristocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny. According to Plato starting from the Aristocracy, the government degenerates into worse condition finally collapsing into tyranny. The whole story line and characters shown in the movie KGF can very effectively explain these five regimes of government.

Regime 1 – Aristocracy and early years of discovery of KGF

Aristocracy literally means ‘Ruled by the best’. Here, Plato expects the best as in the best in wisdom, education and ethics. Today the meaning of aristocracy is somewhat different and misleading. In aristocracy, wisdom and intellect are valued more hence power is in the hands of those who have the merits also called as meritocracy.

The biggest disadvantage of Aristocracy is ‘Nepotism’. Plato categorizes aristocracy as the government where people are ruled by few educated, just and moral people. But Plato never specified how many people are to be called ‘those’ few. Hence over the time meritocracy’s meaning went on obscuring. This leads to single person Aristocracy also known as ‘Monarchy’. Monarchy leads to hereditary rule which empowers Nepotism. Today’s aristocracy in the world is mostly hereditary. Which is far away from Plato’s intended Aristocracy.

We see the same Nepotism based aristocracy.

The early leader ‘Suryavardhan’ as explained in KGF Chapter 1 is smart and has sufficient wisdom and is clever, cunning to control a group of powerful people who are serving him and the people of KGF mines. Then he realizes that his time in this world is short, which creates a wave. When it comes to choosing a successor, he chooses his son Garuda over his brother Adheera. Even if he had chosen Adheera, the power would have stayed within family thus maintaining nepotism influenced monarchy.

Regime 2 – Timocracy – Vanaram, Adheera and their army

Timocracy is the degeneration of aristocracy. When the Aristocratic rulers no more remain ethical, justice loving they only care for the power and the influence it brings on the surrounding. The power corrupts them, that is why they always want to establish control on the masses and resources which drive their lives. Plato categorizes oligarchy as government where people are ruled by single person.

In timocracy, the rulers are more power hungry, less philosophical and focus more on development of military to maintain the grip. Weapons are prioritized over books, basic necessities.

Though Suryavardhan has his own army to control the people of KGF which is led by Vanaram, it is the army of Adheera which stands out throughout the narration. Adheera is more ‘timocratic’. He wants to create the influence through army and cares less about people.

Regime 3 – Oligarchy – Shetty, Inayat Khalil, Leaders of KGF and their gold racket

Oligarchy is all about materialism, the greed and the pleasure that comes with it. It is degeneration of Timocracy. Leaders have the sense of power and the supply of resources that can be controlled through this power. In oligarchy leaders focus more on becoming more and more rich, more and more resourceful. Their lifestyles are lavish, high profile. More focus on the becoming rich caused to pass the rules and regulation that give al the power to riches. Here, the valley between rich and poor is deeper. The military is weak due to more focus on enjoyments and ignorance of leaders. Money gives more merits in oligarchy.

Almost every character is greedy for gold in KGF. Shetty is a good example as an oligarch but his ambitions are far smaller. Though he wants to have control over Bombay he never misses to enjoy the pleasures of this power and this has already corrupted him. He has no rule, character, foundation to drive the tasks (mostly bad tasks). Leaders of KGF also restrict the resources to people of KGF showing greater sign of oligarchy.

Oligarchy brings about that unhappiness in the crowd, causing them to revolt against the leaders.

Regime 4 – Democracy – People of KGF, Rocky and Ramika Sen

In Democracy, it is the rule of leaders chosen by the people who are fed up with the inequality in the society and concentrated power in the hands of leaders. Democracy is the aftereffect of revolt of masses – ‘the mob’ against Oligarchy. In democracy, people do whatever they want. That is why Plato hated democracy. His master, the great philosopher Socrates was the victim of it – Socrates’s death sentence was decided by the masses who were never understood and accepted his teachings. Plato thought that when the mob is given the power to control the government the minorities are pressed down. Wrong activities are justified hen supported by mob. The mob generally does not have that wisdom and can be driven to any direction if properly influenced which is also possible for a sole leader but the influenced mob is more powerful. There is no control and systematic structure, hierarchy to handle issues of the masses.

Today’s democracy is far more evolved from the democracy of Plato. This democracy is liberal democracy somewhat hybrid democracy where there is a proper constitution, strong and independent judicial system, protection of minorities, hierarchy to prioritize the concerns of people and solving them.

We see two different faces of democracy in KGF

One is the democracy in the KGF after the killing of Garuda. People choose Rocky as their leader and are ready to die for him. This democracy is somewhat closer to the democracy explained by Plato in ‘The Republic’. The mob revolts and chooses a face for them. Now the only question is for the chosen face that whether he will fulfill the expectations of his people.

Second democracy is the democracy of India as in Liberal Democracy. Ramika Sen is the face of this democracy along with the constitution, parliament, judiciary, investigation wing. They portray the hierarchy within the democracy to solve the problems like Rocky for the nation. The twist of the story is that Ramika Sen is portrayed as a dictator in a democratic government which makes the fight between Rocky and Ramika interesting.

Ramika’s democracy is more of a totalitarian governance meaning she wants and does hold all the power to uproot Rocky. She wants control over everything.

Rocky’s democracy is more of a new born democracy where there are more chances of dissolving it into the chaos or maybe leading to tyranny if the people’s face loses his conscience. Same happens in the end; Rocky loses his mind over the death of his loved one and crosses the boundary.

Rocky also forces people of KGF to dig more and more gold. At a point in the story, we are given a moment to differentiate the tyrannical nature between Garuda and Rocky. But the forcefulness of Rocky is justified with the promise he made to his mother.

Regime 5 – Tyranny – Almost every ruler of KGF and Rocky to some extent

When democracy gives more power into the hand of a person and if this person has the only personal motivation, only expects personal well being then the democracy degenerates into tyranny. Tyranny is outcome of ideal democracy. When there is no hierarchy paranoia develops among the people and the chosen person amongst the people becomes tyrant. A tyrant does whatever he pleases leading to murder and terror. Tyranny is rule of only one and there is no rule or justification for any decision. The only justification is getting benefited on personal level only. Using the power for personal gains only.

Tyranny is the heart of the story of KGF. The race to own the gold mines always tries to replace one new ruling face. This position and the resistance to sustain this position, this ownership makes every person a tyrant, even Rocky is not exception to it. The only justification for Rocky’s tyranny is again his backstory with his mother.

KGF sole as a movie is a great entertainer and at the same time is a good refresher course on Plato’s Five regimes of government explained in his book ‘The Republic’. You see all these distinct characteristics and the downfall of each system into finally tyranny which highlights the good and bad aspects of each type of governance.