Thirukkural-On Wise Friendship-Kural-447

Idikkun tunaiyaarai aalvaarai yaare
Kedukkundh thahaimai yavar

Where the king"s counselors possess the courage to reprove him when necessary
Nothing on earth can bring about such a king"s ruin.

By way of interpretation, V V S Iyer would ask rhetorically:

“Who can ruin the man that commandeth the friendship of those that can reprove him?".

Kautilya had prescribed, as part of the fullness of a prince"s education, his acquisition of appropriate discipline, by close association with old professors of science, in whom alone precision and discipline could be found effectively internalized as a matter of course.

Where the king has acquired such discipline, he will surely learn also to appreciate and benefit from learned and elderly advisers, who will point out to him, where he has gone wrong. Reciprocally, it is envisaged in this Kural that the mature and wise advisers chosen by the king, will have the courage on their own to reprove him in line, whenever he tends to go along the wrong path.

Machiavelli in his 'Prince" adopts a pragmatic middle course. He is not in favour of the king asking everyone in the court to tell him the truth, and so losing respect all round. Machiavelli, therefore, advises that the king should ask his chosen, mature and wise counsellers individually to tell him the truth and discerningly abide by their counsels.

Even today, most political chief executives only like to hear from their advisers what will be pleasing to them, and these advisers in most cases are only too ready to feed them only with what they want to hear and not what is true. Most wrong decisions taken by political leaders in power are, therefore, due to lack of courage on the part of senior advisers and administrators, who fail in their duty to tell them the truth, which may be bitter, but might have led to correct decisions.

An expression (Idikkum kaelir) occurs in Kurunthogai 58.