The Servant-King: On Democracy, Dharma, and the Citizen’s Crown

 

How else is a person to think of themselves - living in 2025, in the sovereign democracy of Bharat except as a king or queen? 

We vote, speak, assemble, dissent, build, and bless. We walk a sacred geography whose memory runs deeper than our maps. But there’s a paradox at the heart of this dignity:

In a democracy, every citizen is a king.
But every king is a servant -

Not to wealth or whims,
But
To Dharma (order),
Constitution (vow),
Memory (lineage),
and Conscience (witness).

To rule is to align; to align is to serve,
And to serve is to make freedom accessible to those with the least power.

Crown yourself, not with gold, but with restraint.
Seat yourself, not above, but among.
Let your word be consecrated in truth,
And your work be larger than name.
For we are citizens
Servants to the song that outlives us,
Keepers of a country we can only borrow from our children.


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