Why you should care about politics!

39 Comments / Change Management, Leadership, Motivation / By

When I was 7-8 years oId, I started reading newspapers for the first time. I liked reading it every morning. I vividly remember that I always started reading from the last page which was the sports page. I used to read the front page at the end and I never read the Page 4 to 8 which were the politics pages. As I grew up, I continued to start reading from the last page but I had started looking at the headlines in Page 4 to 8. Now I am 34 years old and in the last 10 years or so, my reading pattern has changed completely. Nowadays I start reading from Page 1, spend most of the time on politics pages and only read sports pages if there is time. I am not generalising this journey for everyone but as I look back at this change in my behaviour, I realise the key role that politics plays in our lives and how it shapes our futures individually and collectively. This leads me to believe that we should all deeply care about politics and engage with it in a significantly meaningful way.

As I was growing up, the importance of politics and the way it was influencing my macro and micro life was not so apparent. Now when I look back, I realise how politics and the governance of my country shaped my life at every stage. The options I had for education, the schools I read in, the teachers who taught me, the jobs that I secured, the cities where I stayed – everything was influenced by politics. I am sure that this is true for all of us – what we got and we didn’t, what we became and what we didn’t, who we are and who we are not is influenced by politics of regional, national and global level.

Influence can always be a two way street. As politics influences our lives, we should also strive to influence politics. We should engage in politics to ensure that we are shaping our and the next generation’s lives. Everyone of us has a vision or dream about the future of our community, society, country, region and the world. Politics is a very powerful vehicle to realise this vision. I have seen many people who are apathetic towards politics, they are generally disillusioned by the futility of striving for change in politics. Politics by design is slow and there is a long gestation period in realising meaningful political change. What is needed from all of us is continued engagement in politics. Below are three ways in which one can engage with politics meaningfully.

Identify and align your political beliefs

Think about the future that you want to live in. What kind of world do you want to leave for your next generations. What are your visions of the future society, economy, religion etc. Once this clarity of end state is achieved, it will become easier to align the political beliefs to these end states. It is absolutely fine if the political beliefs span across many political parties. Always remember that the life span of political beliefs is longer than that of political parties. Another thing to remember is that beliefs can change over time. We are always exposed to new informations and perspectives so it is very natural for us to modify our end states with more knowledge and experience.

Engage in ‘healthy’ discussions on politics

I feel this is an area that we do very little or we do the wrong way. Some of us avoid discussing about politics with our friends, family and network of acquaintances and some of us discuss politics in a trivial and/or non-constructive way. Healthy discussions about politics broadens the perspective and helps to understand the different beliefs and ideologies. You should discuss your political beliefs with your network and take inputs from them. Some may align with your beliefs and some may not. Either ways it will be beneficial for you as you will realise if you should continue with your beliefs or modify them as you learn more through these interactions. You should try to avoid echo chambers in these discussions, ensure that you get to discuss across the spectrum of beliefs.

Contribute to the political discourse

This is an area where we don’t do well at all. Contributing to politics goes way beyond being keyboard warriors or social media sharp shooters. All of us need to contribute to the political discourse in a tangible way. We need to step out from the confines of our devices and social media platforms and look for real world opportunity to further the political belief and ideologies that we hold dearly. This may mean reaching out to the political parties to collaborate on policy design, volunteering in implementation of different programmes and initiatives, lending our professional skills (such as data analytics, program management, marketing etc.) to political campaigns and movements. The political parties are better run compared to the past and there are good people aplenty who want to work with people who bring a different skill sets to the table.

The motivation to write this post came from a casual conversation with a friend when we were discussing how politics is a powerful tool to change society. My friend said “We should not worry about politics, it is none of our business.” This led me to reflect and introspect and now I can confidently say that politics is definitely our business and hopefully we can use the 3 steps above to go about this business successfully.

39 thoughts on “Why you should care about politics!”

  1. Umang Mathur

    Nice Article. Very string and meaning DIL words – “life span of political beliefs is longer than that of political parties”.

    1. niladri.chatterjee86

      Thanks Umang! The statement is true specially in the Indian context where parties rise and fall and sometimes change ideology through their lifecycle.

  2. Sandeep sailli

    Very nicely written, totally vibes with me how i started reading newspaper when I was young

    Well Done!!

  4. Sneha

    Well said Niladri! Having a healthy conversation should be the moto but often it does not happen. People tend to argue based on their political views instead of thinking broadly and criticism is how it ends. 🙂

  5. Antareep Mahanti

    Very cogent article Niladri. I resonated with the idea of going beyond echo chambers to help develop a holistic view of an issue or ideology.

    Very well written!

  6. Anurag Ranjan

    Very aptly written! Reminded of the age old adage by Plato that – One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics, is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

  7. VAIBHAV GUPTA

    If the governance is done with good intention, with selflessness, with truthfulness……then surely many of the issues and problems at global level will be minimised.

    Due to human activity, world is facing a devastating effect of climate change due to global warming. It is a warning for humanity…..Code Red for humanity !

  8. Anonymous

    Lucidly explained the nuances of reading the news via medium called paper which no longer exit.

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