‘Politics’, in itself, may not be a bad thing. It is an organic reality owed to the natural diversity of thoughts and persuasions. As a phenomenon, it is simply the means through which diverse thinkings coalesce, clash, engage with each other, and finally produce hierarchies of influence.
History itself is an aggregate of contradicting persuasions and their resultant hierarchies. Even personal relationships are based on interactive foundations that are inherently political-hierarchical in nature.
Within governance, politics takes a more specific ontological form. It becomes a framework of action – that structural blueprint on which multiple layers of thoughts are erected to create a certain shape or form. In multi-party democracies, such blueprints exist aplenty, one for each to pick. Every action performed and decision taken within hence becomes a direct or lateral outcome of these blueprints.
Thus, the catch-question “Why politics?” (a favourite amongst the aspirational, powered, and moneyed classes) is a total non-starter. It is an interrogation divorced from the intertwined realities of human conduct from the present and the past. To ask why politics is essential is to pre-suppose that a scenario may exist where there is no politics. This is an ignorant assumption based on two misleading beliefs: that every social unit wields equal influence in collective decision-making, and that all ideological persuasions inherently tread the same line.
So when one asks, “Why politicise crime?”, or “Why politicise a rape?”, or “Why politicise the fate of children?”, they are rowing a boat on sand. There is no way to understand the superstructure (the crime) without assessing its structural blueprint (the politics). The visible form may be unpleasant to look at, but it is the blueprint that needs apprehending, redrafting.
From Politics To Politicise
To progress from ‘politics’ to ‘politicise’ without unpacking everything in between would be a stunted analysis.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘politicise’ as “to make something or someone political, or more involved in or conscious of political matters.” The usage attached is: “law enforcement should not be politicised.”
The Oxford Dictionary primarily defines the term as “cause (an activity or event) to become political in character,” and secondarily, “make (someone) politically aware.” The usage example attached with the latter definition is interesting: ‘we successfully politicised a generation of women.’
Merriam-Webster has a more unhelpful definition – “to give a political tone or character to.” Here, the example goes as: “an attempt to politicise the civil service.”
Clearly, the three most revered dictionaries in the world differ, perhaps only minutely, in the understanding of the act of ‘politicisation’. While Merriam-Webster attaches a largely cynical connotation to the term, Cambridge contends that it also involves some degree of positive ‘consciousness.’ Oxford, on the other hand, believes that ‘politicisation’ can also be a triumph – as evinced by the usage example. Personally, I would pick this final variant.
To make oneself aware of the blueprint is an act as natural as the existence of the blueprint itself. If it exists, we ought to know about it – what’s so outrageous about that? Historically, this act of recognition transcends ideologies and other belief systems: everyone across the aisle has attempted to discern the blueprint at some juncture or the other. Hence, we have a non-exhaustive repertoire of historiographies, not just plain histories.
Can’t Discount The Political
So, let’s not cheer and glean good at a national leader proclaiming from a dislocated stage, “Why must we politicise a rape?”
A rape – even one where specific communitarian identities are not overtly involved – is almost always a political act, simply because it flows from a certain social framework that is based on hierarchies. It is but an act drawn along two asymmetric blueprints and consequently, two different levels of social influence. Without a variability in blueprints or in other words, a clash of contesting politics, there cannot be subversive violence, structural or physical.
In case of a rape involving explicit community identities, there are several more blueprints involved – gender, social standing, and group affiliations. These are intertwined into a complex mesh of crisscrossing lines that together form the blueprint (or politics) of the crime. Contrary to what most governing elites (and their lumpen affiliates) might believe, rejecting this blueprint isn’t to take a moral high ground, but on the contrary, to postpone resolution of the problem.
Thus, as both Cambridge and Oxford Dictionaries contend, to be aware and conscious of the politics surrounding an issue is to politicise. If this is the case, where’s the moral superiority in discouraging awareness, not unlike what many have professed after the heinous rape-and-murder of an 8-year-old in Jammu?
After all, an aware citizenry is an informed electorate. Anything less is a truncated democracy.
Where To Now?
Often, a good way to negotiate with static realities is to find the ‘best’ version of it.
The question, therefore, that should concern us in times of perceived crises of governance is not why is politics conducted, but rather how is that politics conducted? Is it a politics of exclusion and hate? Or is it one of inclusion and acceptance?
The how is essentially the building block of an electoral democracy. It is that single most important parameter, which not only shapes partisan narratives, but also forms the connecting link between the masses and the governing elite, the bedrock of the modern social contract by virtue of which the citizenry may rightfully demand answers, reforms, or total change from the powers that be.
A natural absence or deliberate subversion of this crucial link almost always leads to the erosion of accountability and in turn, democracy.