Is it possible to be neutral and political at the same time?

The topic of this post also originated from one of my Facebook discussions. One of my Facebook friends wondered if one can be neutral and support any political party or ideology? According to me, definitely one can. It's really a tough balance to strike, no doubt about it, but it's possible. Being neutral doesn't necessarily mean being politically inactive, one can choose to remain politically inactive, and nothing wrong with it, however, being neutral about one's opinions does not make someone by default politically inactive. Voting is one of the fundamental rights of citizens of any democratic country. While voting, one has to choose from the given options, this is how it works. Nowadays, in many places, there is an option for a write-in candidate (you can write the name of the candidate which you think is more suitable but not on the ballot), or NOTA (none of the above), but realistically, these options rarely make any difference. A neutral person can support a political party or vote for a particular candidate irrespective of her or his party. The only difference is that just because she voted for them such a person does not stop questioning or opposing whenever she feels there is a deviation from the agenda based on which she offered her support. Rather, such people are the first ones to ask for accountability and transparency, raise concerns, offer constructive criticism, and keep up the pressure. This is healthy for democracy. When a voter of any political party or a leader asks for accountability or raises difficult questions that party or a leader has to listen to those voices. The risk of losing an election is one of the biggest motivators for a political entity to take action. 

It is common to ignore criticism coming from opponents as the perception is they will criticize no matter what, that is why it is important to have a pressure group within the party that keeps an eye on what's going on. This means neutral voters or independent voters have a bigger role to play in politics than supporters of any political party or leader. There has to be a substantial number of independent voters to create this pressure otherwise populist politics is going to overtake. This is what's going on in many parts of the world where a certain political leader, party, or ideology has a massive fan following resulting in unilateral political discourse. In this situation, neither opposition nor independent voices matter much as they do not have any influence on the electoral outcome. That is why if you have an independent voice, and protect your independence, occasionally, you might feel isolated or out of place, but cherish that independence as it's neither a common thing nor easy to achieve. Be politically active without being bothered by the political undercurrents, and make sure to connect with right-minded people so that your voice is loud enough to register its presence. In any real democracy dissent or neutral voices are encouraged, if not, it's not a real democracy yet.

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Difficulty of being neutral

Recently, during one of my Facebook discussions, one of my Facebook friends expressed concern about the problem of finding neutral voices in India. His question was pertinent and I am sure many people have the same question, how neutral are the voices who are popular on social media, in the print media, or who can shape or influence public opinions. The answer is not so easy. It's hard to be neutral or impartial. We all would love to be perceived as neutrals or impartial people. However, it's not easy to be neutral about our views. We all have some explicit or implicit biases and they shape our opinions. At the same time, we can be conscious of those biases, and recognize them while expressing our opinions or accepting them if someone points them out to us. Knowing about our own bias definitely helps us to be neutral or impartial. Actually, neutrality and impartiality are not the same, there is a subtle difference between them, but that difference does not matter for our discussion here.

Neutrality has to do more with the consistency of our reactions than their intensity or frequency. It does not mean that one reacts to each and every incident, as it's practically impossible in today's age and time. It also does not mean one reacts with equal intensity every time because our emotions vary from time to time depending on so many reasons, and many times it's not intentional. Neutrality means there is consistency in our reactions. It means we do not base our reaction based on who did it but based on what happened. If we condemn mob lynching in one incident and implicitly justify it in another it's not consistent, it's not a neutral reaction. People can choose to remain silent for a variety of reasons Sometimes they might feel that their voice is not needed as there are already enough people who are raising the same issue. Sometimes they think that they have nothing additional to add than what is already said. Sometimes they think that their voice won't be counted. Sometimes they feel that there is no use in speaking based on their past experience. Sometimes they are scared, frustrated, or depressed. Sometimes they are busy with other things or just forget to register their opinion. Just because most of us have social media accounts does not mean we need to speak and express ourselves on each and every issue. We can pick and choose when we want to speak, but the important question is, are we consistent whenever we speak? This is easy to verify, just check the history of that person. Do they speak only on certain issues? If they speak are they consistent about their stance? Do they justify something for some incidents and then criticize the same thing for another incident?

As I said, it's not easy to be neutral, especially if you identify yourself to be a supporter of any particular political party or ideology. If you are not neutral, just don't pretend to be one, as I said it's easy to figure it out, we have our footprints all over the internet. Being biased is common, but being neutral is not, however, pretending to be neutral is also very common. Decide what you want to be, after all, the choice is entirely yours.

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History - be careful while reading it

History was not one of my favorite subjects in school. I didn't like the way it was taught and tested in schools. It did put too much emphasis on remembering the names, dates, and other insignificant details of the incidents rather than understanding the analyzing the significance of those events. Eventually, I met people in my life who reintroduced this subject to me in a much more interesting way and then I started reading books to understand more about some past events,. Now I love to read history and like to read accounts from different sides. One can find many historical accounts, either written by experts (after thorough research) or by witnesses (who were involved in some way in those incidents). Many of these reports are sometimes contradictory to each other, some glorifying the incident while others criticizing it. If we see such contradictory accounts, which one to believe? Which one is true? This is a very important question and there is no easy answer to this. My approach is to read as much as you can from all sides and then decide for yourself. 

The major problem that I face while reading most of these books or articles is that many times they are very biased, the views and opinions clearly take sides. There are neutral accounts also but very often they are not popular because people like to see clear heroes and villains in every story and often neutral accounts don't project clear heroes and villains so they fail to impress most readers. I see this contrast when I review what I learned in school about the Indian freedom struggle. All those lessons glorified all actions of Indians, the armed struggle of 1857 was presented in such a way that as a kid I was under the impression that all autocracies were only committed by British troops and all rebels were very honest and fair in dealing with their enemies. But when I read some books (for example a recent book which I read, Gandhi Churchill by Arthur Herman) that talk about the same mutiny but from a totally different perspective. I learned about each and every massacre committed by British troops but I never knew about the Bibighar massacre. I was surprised when I read about it. I am sure it was omitted purposely from our textbooks. I am sure one can find totally different views about the Pearl Harbor attack, or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki if we read Japanese and American opinions. When there are totally different views about the same incident, it is not easy to decide who is right and who is wrong.  

I think rulers (kings in the past and governments now) always feel the need to present history in a biased way to infuse patriotism in people. They want more heroes from our past and from our lineage so that we feel proud about our history and buy the argument that the past was more glorious than the present. But I always wanted to know both sides. Mahabharat taught me that there is no absolute right or wrong in this world, everything is relative, and it depends on which side you are standing. I have no shame or hesitation in accepting some dark spots in Indian history. They are also part of our history. They belong to us as much as many other glorious things that we mention proudly. I am not selective in my acceptance or denial. This helps me to learn and grow intellectually. I always tell my kids that before forming any opinion about anything try to know all sides, and be prepared to change that opinion if any contradictory information is received as nothing is permanent.

Reading is good, it improves our knowledge and sharpens our minds. I always try to read diverse opinions and try to get neutral opinions or at least views from both sides. It helps to balance my own views. If we look at history only through the eyes of winners, losers will be always villains, if we read only from the loser's perspective we will always feel winners didn't play a fair game. Our vision will be clouded depending on which side we are looking at, our job is to make it as much less clouded as possible. 

History is a very engaging and mesmerizing subject, and it has the potential to teach us a lot, at the same time if we are not careful then it can also fill us with a lot of negative emotions and hatred against each other. We need to be very careful about how we interpret the historical events. We need to make sure that we have all the required information before forming any opinion about any country or community. There are already enough conflicts around us we definitely don't need any more of them. Always remember, history is past so don't allow it to ruin our present and destroy our future. If we are careful about all these things then history is an amazing subject.

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(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)