POLITICAL ALIENATION

By Prof Dr. Sohail Ansari

Conceived and worded by DR Sohail Ansari (originality of concepts and originality of words).

He believes that there can never be a zero scope for improvement and appreciates criticism if it is not for the sake of criticism.

 ‘Murray Levin suggested the term ‘political alienation’ to refer to the attitude of voters who find that they have no control over the system that is run by a small number of powerful people who remain in control regardless of the outcome of elections. In Pakistan, slowly and gradually, a large proportion of the electorate feels politically powerless; and these feelings of powerfulness are sharpened by the view that regardless of the outcome of the election, the powerful remain in control by realigning themselves with the newly-elected. Voters view the political conspiracy, the object of which is to plunder them. Democracy to them is the rule of the few manipulators who can collect suffrages in their own favor with the great success; hence in theory, the people are the sovereign, but in practice the true rulers are these industrialists, landlords and capitalists who intend to use democracy as an instrument of domination and exploitation of poorer classes by the richer classes; thus voting becomes to them a meaningless exercise in electoral process that itself is sham.’

On 1^st Oct1993, Abdul Quadir Husan writes in Jung: ‘Same candidates and same constituencies, and mechanism and same program of political parties. What purpose these election would serve? …nation wonder if same persons have to come in Parliament after the interval, and then it would not be better if the people in Parliament and candidate who lost to them in previous election hold one lucky draw and result decides who will join the Parliament. There are many people in country who can conduct impartially this draw; children should not get themselves involved in this dirty game. Political scientists believe that elections are necessary for sifting out: in the end, one can have the people who can deliver; but this is wrong because in every election all candidates are same: and all are equally bad.’

  

Feelings of political alienation can produce three attitudes. First is political withdrawal as a response of feelings that any political effort has little chance of producing an effect; ‘those casting ballots in 1997 were significantly fewer than in 1993, thus illustrating the lack of citizen interest in the contest. The percentage of eligible voters casting ballots was estimated at about thirty’. Second is the identification with a charismatic leader that gives one the sense of power but also propels him into an activity he would otherwise abhor. Third is projection of anger emanating from political alienation on to some other group. Other group is seen as participating in a hostile conspiracy. The conspiratorial theory is particularly appealing as it accounts for the absence of power in a simple fashion.

In democracy people are the sovereign and express this sovereignty by choosing or rejecting someone. Ads appeal to ‘these sovereign’ but feeling of powerlessness alienates electorates to campaign. Penetration of conspiratorial thinking in a national psyche affects not only the motivation to vote in elections but also as a mean of constructing reality, this paranoia is an invitation either to apathy in politics or an inducement to move toward violent means of political expression.