But Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, and Yahya Khan died in their beds. Hussein Mohammad Ershad is alive and kicking, still going strong in pursuit of politics. Why great leaders are cut down in the mid-air, but lesser ones land it safe?

It's hard to place Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul Haque, and Rajiv Gandhi in any of these pantheons. They died unnatural deaths, but most people wouldn't like to think that they were great leaders. But the question remains whether there is a connection between greatness and fatality, whether there is some kind of a destiny curve that goes full circle for those who aspire to accomplish great deeds?

Perhaps there is one connection. All great deeds bring change, and change always puts pressure on the status quo. Martin Luther King was killed with a perfect shot in Memphis, because he was pushing a barrier that was in favour of the American whites, because he wanted equality for blacks in a culture which was rooted in discrimination. Throughout history, kings and leaders have lost their lives because both power of change and change of power are deadly games.

But there is another explanation as to why this connection exists. From time to time political destiny reconciles what is sowed with what is reaped. Richard Nixon shot to fame through his prosecution of Alger Hiss. As fate would have it, he would be hounded from power by the son of a labour organizer in Washington and a member of the Communist Party, who was hounded into hiding by subpoenas from Nixon's House of Un-American Activities Committee. Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporter, and his colleague Bob Woodward, unearthed the Watergate scandal and wiped out the Nixon presidency.

More examples, if you like. Lyndon Johnson stole the Senate seat from Coke Stevenson by lying that his opponent was a communist and then by diddling the election returns of one county in Texas. In twenty years, the same Johnson would be caught in the webs of his own cunning and lies about Vietnam. Once desperate to acquire power by all means, Johnson eventually bowed out and refused to run for the second term.

Great leaders often resort to narrow interests which start off the chain of events leading to their destruction. Sukarno liberated Indonesia, but was toppled by a military coup four years after he had announced himself President for Life. The projectile was exhausted before traveling far because it was mired in corruption, womanizing and other earthly pleasures. This is not to say that all the great leaders who got killed were unscrupulous men. Most of them fight for a cause, which ask for sacrifice and spill blood. Although friends and comrades urged him to settle down, Che Guevara wanted to change the world, spreading the fire of revolution from one country to another. In the end, the government troops hunted him down in the Bolivian jungles.

This is where it becomes difficult to draw the line. Great leaders can get either punished or rewarded in death. Anwar Sadat was killed by the Islamic extremists as a punishment for his initiative to make peace with Israel. Salvatore Allende died in a CIA-staged coup in Chile to pay for his sins because he tried to create a socialist enclave in the capitalist landscape. But Benigno Aquino's killing in the Philippines spurred the public reaction, which forced Ferdinand Marcos to flee the country. Great leaders, who get killed, can hang in the balance as martyrs to some, monsters to others. In our own country, we cannot sort out that dilemma between Shiekh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman.

In some ways, great leaders are packaged by destiny. When John Kennedy went to London in 1947 and suffered the first attack of Addison's disease, a doctor gave him only one year to live. When he returned to New York attended by a nurse, a priest even gave him the last rites at the dock. Kennedy lived for next 16 years to become one of the most illustrious US presidents until an assassin's bullet took his life in 1963.

Perhaps one reason why great leaders meet tragic ending is that they are more mission-bound than time-bound unlike ordinary men. Their lives are comparable to incense sticks which burn to give fragrance and then reduce to ashes once finished. Every great life lives for a cause, a purpose-led journey from birth to death, divergent to encompass many more lives along the way. Lesser lives are like license and permit. They have a date of issuance and a date of expiry, convergent to exploit other lives for private gains.

Many great lives live long, because they accomplish multiple purposes. Mao Ze Dong brought about the Chinese Revolution and the Cultural Revolution to complete the trajectory of his mission. But Fidel Castro liberated Cuba and became its lifelong ruler on cruise control. He brought change and then turned that change into status quo.

Some great lives get wasted before their purpose is clear. Patrice Lumumba of Congo was assassinated by the members of the Belgian Secret Service, apparently because he was seen as an impediment to the western interests. He has become a martyr of the African cause in general and his voice still echoes throughout the continent. But nobody knows who killed Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme. His murder still remains unexplained except that he was a troublemaker on the international political scene, uncompromising with the White House as with the Kremlin, and a passionate spokesman for the Third World.

Turn to insects in order to understand the Homo sapiens. When the caterpillar is full grown it forms a pupa where the miracle happens. If the caterpillar forms the chrysalis, it turns into a butterfly. If the caterpillar forms the cocoon, it becomes a moth. A similar miracle happens when leaders get to power. Some form the chrysalis and turn into butterflies, which is a symbol of moral compromise. Others form the cocoon and turn into moth, which is a symbol of sacrifice.

The butterflies are attracted to flowers and the moths are attracted to fire. Even amongst the butterflies, the species that vary their diet to include rotting fruit, dung, mud, sweat, pollen, and even carrion, generally live longer than those that live on nectar. Why great leaders get killed and the lesser ones live longer? The answer should be obvious by now.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.