Of late, politics has become a great entertainer! From the presidential debates in the United States to the Right-Left divide in our own motherland, politics can give Hollywood and Bollywood quite a run for their money. Politics is often devoid of logic, very much like the heroes of Bollywood taking on a multitude of fully armed villains and emerging victorious. Also, there are bewildering complexities that one sees in the political spectrum.
For example, the politics of the Left vs Right has always puzzled me. I always wondered as to how one gets to be termed Leftist or a Rightist. In cricket, a left-hand batter is referred to as a “south paw” and I was trying to use this analogy to understand the Left-Right divide in politics but it seemed too simple an analogy to rely on. What is Right-wing ideology or what is Left-wing ideology? Can they not coexist to form a “right” or a most suitable political ideology?
I am not a political science student and wouldn’t know the academic definitions of Left-wing or Right-wing ideology but what I understand from the political discourse that is out in the open is that the Leftists consider themselves more reformed and liberal and, according to them, the Rightists are conservative and regressive. The Rightists consider themselves to be nationalist and custodians of tradition and heritage. The Leftists, according to them, are anti-national.
Don’t birds and aircraft not need wings on both sides of their torso to fly? If a businessman, with alleged Left leanings, were to start an aviation business, will he have a fleet of left-winged aircraft only? Can we not have a leader or a political entity, who/which is able to integrate and balance seemingly opposing ideologies, policies or interests. What if a politician is able to appeal to both liberal and conservative voters and is able to navigate complex political situations with ease. Such people are accused of being ambiguous in their thinking, non-committal and termed Centrists!
In all this melee, the one is who is eternally trying to find the middle ground is the common man and is always caught in the cross-fire. I was reminded of my habit of switching between left and right hands when I used to do my schoolwork. My father noticed that my right-handed work was good and insisted that I stick to the right hand. My mother used to say “Allow him to experiment and maybe over a period of time, he will become ambidextrous!” I do not know whether my father was a Rightist and my mother a Centrist, but the big question that lingers and continues to remain unanswered is can you be politically ambidextrous?
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