A Case for Politics: Carpets, Catharsis, and other Conundrums

It’s mid-april, that merry time of the year when the campus is released from the noose of tension and treachery. The student elections have just concluded and people are turning back to studying and turning their backs from speculating, amidst scalding Delhi heat. IIT Delhi has five boards - BSW, BRCA, BSP, BSA, and BHM under the aegis of SAC and a different council called CAIC. All these boards have various posts (the description of which can be found by the reader via an internet search) for which students are elected by various electorals. [3]

In this post, I wish to talk about politics. That word which kept the night messes buzzing with activity and common rooms occupied with whispered conversations, late night meetings behind closed doors and brilliant minds charting elaborate masterplans. But none of the usual stuff. I want to take a bird eye view of politics. I have things to say for poltu [0], not against it.

The first man to fence in a piece of land, saying “this is mine” and who found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. - Rousseau

It seems like we can divide the IITD junta into two broad classes: One who thinks of poltu as some malicious alien from another planet, something that is to be dreaded in its entirety and not talked about, and only in hushed voices, if at all. And the second class which doesn’t understand it.

Why politics? My - admittedly chief-ed-esque - TLDR to that: Because politics gets the job done.

History 101

A bit of good ‘ol history first. Humans are the most unorganised species on earth, lacking pheromonal receptive abilities like ants, or auditory evolutions like lions, or ultrasonic organs like fishes. But we evolved with the single most magnificent object - the brain. And so it was. We built our own meta organisation structures by means of language and trust. And this is very important. The tribe leader was the tribe leader because he can be trusted to fight with other tribe leaders to protect the tribe. Gradually, these ethics and obviousities were codified into laws, engraved onto clay tablets, and sent off to every corner of the “kingdom” by the “king”. This was the birth of civilization. Note that the average tribe count was 100-150. The metropolis I live in today is home to 30 million people. If I was to summarise what enabled human beings to band together and coordinate in such huge numbers, it would be: hierarchy.

Storytelling ourselves everyday

We came up with totally nonsensical rules such as “Every citizen is answerable to a bunch of other citizens called judges in a building called the Supreme Court which is responsible to dole out justice and other things to everyone” or “The employee has to work for the boss given some compensation.” and hundreds of more and made them sensical by agreeing to believe in them. Nothing is physically holding back people from revolting except these entirely imaginary structures. It is only the stories we tell ourselves. Maybe take a minute to stop reading and ponder how brilliant this is.

Social structures and politics

Social hierarchy was a purely ad hoc human invention, one ironically facilitated by another ad hoc human invention - money. Social status and financial status quickly became intertwined for reasons that are beyond the scope of this article. Politics helped decide who gets to be on the top of the hierarchy. Politics ensured that only the most able and competent rose to the top. And I would go so far as to argue that it was okay to spill a little blood and stab someone in the back - just a little treachery as long as the one who died was less able to run the state, kingdom whatever. Political institutions are the free market of human intelligence. [2]

IITD and politics

I think it is irresponsible to wholly reject the idea of politics just because it appears “evil” and shady or worse yet, to have a totally wrong idea about what it is. And this is what’s wrong with IIT Delhi at the moment. What students should understand is that they are forging themselves to become leaders of tomorrow. And as cocky as it might sound, they are. University is supposed to give them a controlled environment to hone those skills and develop a unique personality, one grounded in integrity and truth. Students should feel a deep responsibility to question candidates and ensure that the most able ones rise to the top. Half the people have the wrong idea about what politics is and the other half doesn’t seem to care. I believe more and more people should talk about politics and student politics and no more in hushed voices because cowards do that. And we should not forget to be prepared to listen for 10 times as long as we speak. And that’s how one creates a political structure that would lead to prosperity and greatness.

[0] poltu is one of those cringey IITD contractions for the word politics. I shall use poltu for the rest of the article, excuse my transgression, but I find it befitting given the subject at hand.

[2] If this feels like straight out of a Harari book, then I must compliment your reading habit.

[3] The pedantic might raise their eyebrows when I say BSP has elected members and it does not. BSP posts are nominated and decided by a number of professors.

Proofread by Mahima Mukherjee