Centrism in Politics ( மையவாதம்/நடுவுநிலைமை )

The following is yet another rant about a thing that has been torturing me for months now. So it might be even more incoherent than my other stuff.

Before starting this, I had to google what is the word for Centrism in tamil and the word for நடுவுநிலைமை in English. It is மையவாதம் and Impartiality respectively. My intuitive understanding of these two, were that they meant the same thing, albeit in different contexts.

But this changed, when I watched the teaser of the movie Nenjukku needhi ( The remake of the excellent movie Article 15 ).

The last dialogue piqued my interest a lot. I am still yet to watch this though. If it came from anyone else, this wouldn't have made me think for more than a second. The dialogue goes like

என்னை பொருத்த வரை, நடுவுல நிக்கிறது இல்ல சார் neutral, நியாயத்து பக்கம் நிக்கிறது தான் சார் neutral.

this roughly translates to

As far as I'm concerned standing in the centre is not neutral, 

Standing with justice is neutral.

To be fair, this is a very good dialogue and a very good point.

But what made me write this, was who said it. No... not the character. The person playing the character. Tamilnadu is known for its leaders coming from Cinema background, and famously using it to their advantage. This person is a standing MLA in the TN assembly, and the son of the current chief minister. The party he represents ( DMK ) is infamous for behaving like their opinions are the only correct way to handle things ( Example: their handling of NEET, LTTE issues ), and that everyone else is wrong, just like how BJP handles it in the centre. So when he says this in the movie, he obviously means standing with DMK is neutral.

But thinking about it, don't everyone think that they are in the side of justice ? If that is the case, then everyone should say they are centrists/neutral. This is where I realized I got the definition wrong, and possibly the writers of that dialogue also got some things wrong.

The mistake I made was conflating the political position ( Centrism ) in the political spectum, and Impartiality as equivalent things. 

Centrism

Centrism is the position where one doesn't identify with most qualities of the right wing and the left wing either. They get kicked from both the sides, and basically almost never get elected in the Indian context, as there is almost always a party which represents either extreme position, and both sides vote for their group, leaving centrists almost with nothing.

Centrism is also difficult in my opinion. I identify as a centrist, and for every new issue it is a constant battle when picking sides. Because, the key problem with centrists are is that, they beleive in some issues from the right and the left. But the issues other centrists beleive in, might not be the same. So one has to spend much time trying to weigh in extreme opinions from both sides to come to a conclusion, whereas a left/right wing person, can just use their side's arguments and accept it as it is, as anyway they straight away deem the other side irrelevant from the word go ( This might seem like an exhaggeration, but a person who proudly brags to me about not reading this blog EVER, behaves like this all the time, and just completely throws away any argument from the other side, saying it is their agenda. )

Impartiality

The key part where impartiality differs from centrism, in my opinion, is that now a person has to throw away his beleifs and decide every issue based on its merits. This is a tougher problem. The reason it is difficult for most people is, they cant fathom that the other side in the issue, might have a reason ( valid or not ) at all for opposing something, completely ignoring Hanlon's razor.

 

DMK as a party, always beleives in badmouthing political opponents about their political standing, and most times, dont even try to reason why the opposing beleif is wrong, but just keep repeating their beleifs over and over again. So a top leader in that party saying that dialogue is the most hilarious part. But also, they have clearly confused both centrism and impartiality, just like me, because if that is not the case, then the entire line is meaningless. Citing my previous rant about useless things, If everyone will claim they are standing with justice regardless of their opinion/political position, then everyone is a centrist/neutral whatever, now the word neutral as political position, completely loses it meaning. Why even have a word for something meaningless ?

Also, as a hilarious side note... when I was thinking about political sides and trying to fit parties into these sides, I realized that one of the few centrist parties in TN is hilariously NTK. Just that they managed to pick extreme opinions from both sides somehow and managed to form a political group from it ( Being so ready to form a nation out of a language identity is trademark right wing... whereas all the bullshit about his version of the self-sustainable economy mostly sounds like communism to me. )

Useless actions

 While walking down the road i take daily back home, Today i passed an auto which I thought was parking down the side of the road, but the vehicle jerked slightly when i went ahead to cross it. I instinctively put my hand up asking him to slow down. Believe it or not, If anyone has to be blamed for you having to read this, It is the guy who was driving that auto.

Almost immediately after I made the gesture, I was overflowing with guilt about how much of bigot a I am. I have given my father too much shit for doing the same. My father would cross a road, even after seeing a car in a small distance, and would put out his hand as if to gesture the driver to slow down. I absolutely hated it, every single time. First, the driver would anyway slow down, if he was going to, since he has seen the almost 6 foot body, crossing the road. If not, the act of putting up the gesture was not going to magically convince him to slow down. So what is the point of that gesture ?

Maybe I was over-reacting, but this extreme reaction, comes from my experiences as a driver (.. clears throat.. ) of a cycle. I absolutely hated people who crossed the road as if the road belonged to them, when there is heavy traffic. After all, Of all the vehicles, regaining the lost momentum in a cycle is the most draining.  Almost all of those POSs had one common gesture. Did putting that hand out help ? They know I am going to come to screeching halt if I see that the person is about to hit my cycle. By putting that hand out, It just puts out a message that my responsibility in not hitting that person, has now increased. So not only you put me in discomfort, but also somehow made it more of my fault. Ofcourse nobody thinks like this.

But coming back to my point. If everyone knows that the gesture is not doing anything, why do we instinctively do it ? Well.. atleast this one can be termed as an instinct. But certain other examples, have shown me otherwise.

Recently I was coerced into doing the shameful act of registering in a matrimonial site. While writing my own bio, I realized that there is not much I can mention about myself, that is not completely useless. And my expectations were even worse. So I left it with a one liner. Ofcourse the coercers ( is this even a word ? ChatGPT says it is. ) weren't happy with that. The suggestions was to add a line in my bio, saying that I am good-looking, from a good family which has good values. This must have struck the same part of my over-reacting brain, and I protested so much, that they had to step back. Because... who doesn't think that they are good looking ? ( or to be precise, who wouldn't put themselves as good looking in a matrimony site ? ). Also, will any sane person registering in a matrimony site ( I hope we are in that population. I know it is a tiny percentage... ), put themselves as "not from a good family" ? If the answer for either of these is NO, then would anyone put these in their profiles ? The answer to my dismay is... A LOT. Granted that most of these profiles are made by parents, who are just struggling enough with the technology that, they don't really have enough energy to spend on writing a sane bio. But every other profile I see says the same thing as if it adds any information. 

Why are we so in love with words which don't add absolutely any information ? Why do we do actions which don't do anything at all ?

All this reminds me of this excellent scene.

With the risk of turning this into a full rant, I have to clarify that I am not talking about commonly thought of as "useless" things like Small talk, Video games, Writing in this blog etc. All of these serve at least some purpose such as showing an attempt to save a dying conversation, retaining at least a semblance of sanity left and serving as record of how unhinged I used to be, respectively.

Before I start yet another useless story, Goodbye for now.