Going Right or Left
Can one be politically ambidextrous in a world where the gap is widening?
Of late, politics has become a great entertainer! From the Presidential debates in the United States to the RightLeft divide in our own motherland, politics can give Hollywood and Bollywood quite a run for their money.
For example, the politics of the Left versus Right has always amused me.
I am not a student of political science and wouldn’t know the academic definitions of leftwing or rightwing 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 antinational.
Don’t birds and aircraft need wings on both sides to fly? If a businessman, with alleged Left leanings, were to start an aviation business, will he have a fleet of leftwinged aircraft only? Can we not have a leader or a political entity that is able to integrate and balance seemingly opposing ideologies, policies, or interests? Such people are accused of being ambiguous in their thinking and noncommittal and termed Centrists!
In this melee, the one is who is eternally trying to find the middle ground is the common man. 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 righthanded 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.