Leadership Quote by Morarji Desai

In a single pivot, Morarji Desai deflates the modern fetish for “expertise.” The first sentence borrows the sanctified language of technocracy: the expert as neutral instrument, a clean window onto reality. Then Desai snaps the window shut: “He gives his own view.” The line works because it mimics the very bait-and-switch it criticizes. We want the comfort of objectivity; what we often get is authority wearing a lab coat.

As a politician formed in the pressure-cooker of post-independence governance, Desai knew how “expert opinion” functions in real life: not as pure truth, but as a lever. Committees, commissions, economic advisors, security analysts - their judgments arrive packaged as inevitable, shielding decisions from moral scrutiny and democratic pushback. If a policy fails, leaders can blame the “data”; if it succeeds, they claim prudence. Desai’s cynicism isn’t anti-intellectual so much as anti-theater.

The subtext is a warning about power’s favorite disguise. Every “objective” view has a frame: what counts as evidence, which outcomes matter, whose costs are tolerable. Expertise is indispensable, but it’s also personal - shaped by incentives, institutional culture, class position, and the kinds of questions an expert is trained to ask (and not ask). Desai’s sting is that bias doesn’t begin when experts lie; it begins when everyone pretends that a human judgment isn’t a judgment.

Read today, the quote lands as a critique of credentialed certainty: the problem isn’t experts existing, it’s the unearned holiness we grant their conclusions.