The electoral season often comes with a flurry of activities. Alliances are forged, allegiances are courted, and sides are taken. While this is not a particularly bad thing, what has become commonplace in this part is how divergent views are often dismissed as cantankerous and carrying a bulge of ‘ulterior motives.’
Politics is often about interests and few care about being a ‘nice guy’ when something is at stake. However, for a fledgling democracy as ours, there is the need to accommodate opinions even when we don’t necessarily agree with them. One of the fundamental problems with our society today is that everything is reduced to politics; the kind that seeks to hurl stones, that has a selective memory, that is so vociferous yet tame to act, that puts self over the greater good and calls everyone 'stupid' who doesn't share your perspective.
Even as the polity raves up a notch higher, there is the need to listen to each other; realizing that we can still have our say without having our way. At times, having your say should be enough. It is salient for everyone who is politically aware to understand that their viewpoints or support for a candidate is not the gospel, and that it is the hallmark of a trained mind to understand that he does not ever have the full picture on an issue at every point. Political squabbles and banters are paramount in any democratic setting. What should not be tolerated is a tone of crass divisiveness. The fact that someone disagrees with you doesn’t make that person an enemy. No one is politically ‘the finished article.’
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