Registrieren

As India is passing through some kind of political turmoil characterised by a series of protests, I often ask myself a disturbing question. Is it really possible to move towards a reasonably democratic, egalitarian and secular society without working in the domain of culture and human consciousness? The irony is that the kind of mainstream political culture we are used to has been reduced to a purely instrumental electoral politics. Winning elections at any cost seems to have become the primary objective of all sorts of loud, aggressive and Machiavellian strategists we see around us. And yes, this sort of instrumental politics further reinforces and stimulates all sorts of regressive tendencies prevalent in our society — say, the appeal of parochial identities based on caste and ethnicity, the stimulation of religious hyper-nationalism, and above all, the patriarchal sentiments prevalent in every sphere of life. Hence, the question arises: Can we truly practice libertarian politics without altering the prevalent cultural sphere?