The Untouchability of the Political


Why do we do, what we do? It's usually what the society wants us to do, an act of conformity. Be it your mother's insistence on sticking to your job or your friends' persistence on leaving it, its rarely a purely self conscious act.

Of all the actions we carry out everyday, the most onerous and time consuming of all are our economic activities, or the ones we do to make living, get a house, buy some food. Our economic activity, whereby we engage in the sale of our labor in exchange for money, is the most essential act for survival. Money is unavoidable, imperative and is something for which many trade even more than labor, their dignity and freedom.

While economic activity may fill the tummy and rent a shelter, who do we share it with? Who do we rejoice with about our prosperity? One hence, spends time in social activity too. In talking to our family and hanging out with our friends, the social sphere is very essential to our well-being, once our survival is taken care of.


What else do we do? For the rich urban millennial(my audience), there isn't much more to do, between the boss' call, the mothers' call and the girlfriend's call and if some time remains, the calls of our many other senses. For the poor, the indignity of their days is only compensated by the numbness of their nights. And everybody in between, in their everyday lives likes to take out time for leisure. Leisure and improving the quality of leisure eventually become the drivers of economic consumption and social interaction.

But what about the political? How much space does it occupy in our lives? Does political activity even matter?

Oh "professor"! Don't you start..

Sorry, but I am. Let us first start by asking what political activity even means. Political activity broadly concerns all actions undertaken towards fulfilling our economic and social goals as a community. These actions take place within the broad public, outside one's family and peer, and are done together with other members of the community, using common resources, and are aimed towards their benefit.

This definition, albeit a little convenient(and disregardful of academic stress on conflict and power) is very capacious. The benefit of this definition is that it begs the question, why? Why must we act together towards common economic and social goals. If each one of us individually can fulfill both of these for our own selves, why devote or even waste time on this public act?

There are a plethora of reasons why. There are many economic goods, called public goods, which benefit everyone and can not be provided for individually, like roads, public hygiene, water supply, army etc. which need pooling of resources and coordination. Then there are many social needs, like liberty, equality, tranquility and amity which need pooling together of hearts, minds, money and effort. All of these are essential to good lives and cannot be achieved all alone or with just one's family. They need the community to come together. Grappling with questions of what these goals are, which are more important, in cases of conflict, resolving them and finally carrying them out form a large part of what is called political activity.

In modern times, we have elaborate structures to deal with these political problems. We have a constitution that offers these broad goals, taxation to bring in the resources to achieve them, a strong bureaucracy to carry out these goals, checks and balances to ensure these mechanisms don't decay.

One of the main elements of this structure are the infamous "politicians". Our representatives, who we have given up the activity of politics to. They are meant to understand our common and particular ambitions, goals, needs and ensure they are carried out successfully. Their infamy however is a testament to their failure in carrying out the project.

A nation wide survey by Lokniti(Politics and Society Between Elections 2019) brought out the following results on 'Trust in Institutions'. The chart tells us very clearly about our common perception of political parties and broadly politicians





This brings us to the question of, why we as common men and women have relegated this very important task out of our lives to people and institutions we barely trust. Why is the noble and necessary task of political activity barely a part of our lives anymore? Why do our voices and actions, in a democracy, barely exist?

There are many possible reasons for this. Most Indians live lives of drudgery and poverty, with barely the monetary, communicative and even physical resources for such political activity. No wonder our farmers have no power in setting the agenda for our country. Our laborers in the unorganized sector don't have a different story to tell. That leaves us with the middle class and the rich.

The middle class has more resources, sufficient education and relative leisure. Having risen from the lower classes themselves, they seem to lack the culture of political activity and public association. Limited mostly to religious activity and the occasional generosity, regular political activity is for most of them violent, vulgar and "untouchable".

This has also a lot to do with the stories they see on television and the thing they hear on the news. Political scandals, corruption and the overall cynicism that they breed makes them feel insecure and unsure of venturing out, forming associations and working to improve common lives. The distortion of the word political itself, from being a space of self and selfless service, to a space of elite criminality has contributed to the decimation of any political culture that our independence movement left us with. The equalization of the words politics and party politics has relegated civil society from the ambit of politics altogether, leaving no space for ordinary men and women to participate and carry influence.

Only for the rich and popular is the political not "untouchable". In fact, they make it, break it and create it for the rest of us to consume like mute spectators. And even if they don't indulge in it, they can if they wish to.

Politics is a space for all of us to fulfill our dreams for our nation, for our community and society. Individual riches and glories account for little in a society that is mostly poor and downtrodden. Moreover, our social values like liberty, equality, justice and a sense of community and tradition are like grand structures and are not to be taken for granted. They need willing minds to conceive them, big hearts to pay for them them and strong hands to construct them. No matter how small each our contributions may be, it is the sum total that counts.

At a time when our peace is being torn in the name God, our inequality widening and climate worsening in the name of growth, and our liberal traditions dying in the name of tradition, the political cannot be untouchable anymore. This dogma cannot be entertained anymore. Cowardice at worst or reticence at best, cannot be the foundation of this edifice of a nation and a world that we all dream to build.
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