How "apolitical" are we?

I took some time to decide on the caption for this piece. My confusion was with regard to using the term political or apolitical. The reason for my entering into the domain of judging our political nature is in fact very amusing. Readers may think that I have a tendency to return to my favourite topic of personal profiles that we very often see on the social networking sites. But trust me, it is worth asking a few questions about it. So, at the cost of being declared as one who's obsessed with the "profiling business", I go back to that one space on "political views" that we very often come across on these sites. More than half the population of this country has had it ingrained in its mind that "politics and politicians are a bad set". One, I have never understood why are politics and politicians associated with each other (if politicians:politics then academicians:? or for that matter if politics:politicians then bureaucrats:?); two, if politicians would not do politics then what else would they (yet they are clearly more honest than our white-collared lot for having a tendency to ending up in blows and punches instead of the diplomacy of the latter class!)? And third, how bad really is politics?

So, I thought of doing some research first. As is true of most of us netizens nowadays, instead of getting hold of my Oxford or Cambridge dictionary, I reached out for the "wiktionary". I was exceedingly amused at the definitions of "politics" that I came across. First, I found an audio demonstration of the word (pal.I.tiks) in US style of course and some connection with one Aristotle in a far away land (let me be frank, we know only US of A! as the wonderland). Wiki (short for Wiktionary and all of its clan) provided me the following definitions.

First it said politics "is the practice of responding to conflict with dialogue". I stopped and wondered at this definition. I thought of the Assemblies of our States and the Parliament, a chuckle escaped me. Next Wiki says politics "is a set of policies relating to governmental and legal matters" and gives an example "I don't like his politics". I swore on how negative our Wiki is. It could also have said "I like his politics", but it didn't because it had our own poor politicians in mind. The third definition said politics "is arguing for a set of policies, or maneuvering for power" and now as an example it says "I want to go to politics" meaning I don't like his politics but I want to go to politics because I can manouever power. Yet, not being satisfied I searched further. Not in Wiki but some other word search "engine". And this was a cracker. It said politics is "social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power" and wait up, it gave an example too. It went "office politics is often counterproductive". After this revealation, I did not have the heart to look any further. I was satisfied that after all there may not be a significant association between politics and politicians (as WE know them!). The definition of a politician was much more easy: "one who does politics" (ha ha!).

Coming back to the column on political views on one such social networking site, we have a variety of options: liberal, left liberal, very left liberal, right, very right, right conservative, and last of all "not political". Worth noticing is that the "right"(s) are always associated with being conservative (that should put to rest the whole anti-affirmative action controversy in this country!) while the left is either liberal or very liberal. So, the "not political" are neither liberal nor conservative, nor are they social enough to have themselves intrigued with authority and power. Basically, it is hard to put them in any of the occupational categories. But hark! matrimonial profiles are inherently different from this lot. They do not have a column on political views. But ideally they should, going by the definition of politics that we just came across. If you have ever been party to the calculations of dad-in-laws, mom-in-laws, daughter-in-lows, son-in-laws, relatives-in-laws, you would surely know about all those social relations intrigues. Nonetheless, let us move on.

Let's have a peek into what we generally consider to be political issues because the common man always has an opinion on them. What could they be? Education, agriculture, science and technology, defence, communications, industry, natural resources? Many of us take pride in saying we are "non-political" but whenever there is some policy decision on affirmative action, we are up in swords in the form of some hogwash of a forum called "youth for equality"; whenever there is an odd 123 defence deal somewhere, we tend to remain silent (because after all we are standing shoulder to shoulder with a super power of sorts!); whenever we have reports and clippings of declining child sex ratio, we tend to ignore (after all, who cares when this country is one of the most populous!); yet whenever there is a hit on the interest of the majority and the wealthy, we do not take much time to come out in tees and jeans in large numbers (for a demonstration against the policy! what else?), and not to forget that Nike of a cap that gives us a stylish look on camera.

The point really is how apolitical we really are? In other words, whose interests are we safeguarding? Something tells me, its not very hard to find out.