The rise of composite political opinion as a result of the amalgamation of varied ideologies appears to be the most crucial predisposition of the socio-political set-up in India at least in the present times. Being an Indian means you come across various suggestive streams of ideological grants even before you start to understand the politics at all. Free thinking is favourable but what we can not always expect mostly is free decision making and free understanding of the political scene by the citizens who may be attached to at least some degree of biased standpoint. Public opinion-shaping is something that has become an aggressive approach of most political parties. The prioritising of trivial social media exchanges over constructive and developmental arguments by the significant personalities for example may be regarded as a shield they might have used to safeguard their interests up since the advent of new media. Although we as citizens of a democratic nation do consider such exchanges correlating them to our rights to express what we feel, we expect more of what is necessary to be the talk of the town. It is common for a person living in this nation to identify with the ideologies of any political party wholly or partially. The citizens may prefer to pick up what they like from any given ideology and form their own opinion which doesn’t burden them with what they don’t want themselves to identify with. Either way, the picture is never clear because politics tend to work more under vested interest rather than strong ideological identities of what a party stands for. Now the question is, Do we have the choice of not conforming ourselves to this whole parcel of beliefs that come along with all these political parties but the best of what has been offered from all of them? If the goal is to build a healthy nation we need to look up to those who give the nation the best of what exists. The extensive and widespread nature of the information to which the general public is exposed makes it increasingly confusing for them to understand the consequences of their choices. Just like the fact that while choosing a brand previous knowledge makes it easier for us and works in favour of that brand when there is a question of making a choice, political decisions are mostly based on familiarity rather than analysis or any other aspects. The culture of critical analysis in our citizens lacks to a great extent. Most of the decisions that are made do not serve individual choices but collective ones. The mass media is also not able to reach the ground and even today the rural population would rely on hearsay rather than any kind of media who also may not always be free of bias. With every individual comes their understanding which influences their opinion-making and those who seek their help in interpreting may end up mutating an already formed opinion instead of a fresh new outlook. Without a new outlook, the political understandings of the citizens would not develop as required. This is also one of the major causes of why we should remove the passive mode of learning as soon as possible from the Indian education system. There is a need for a complete understanding of what has transpired till now and what is the actual setting. If we still make excuses like illiteracy and ignorance of the common people, it will be a downfall that could be regarded as solely caused by the educated folks. We can, because if formal education isn’t always necessary for becoming a good and effective leader we are also in a position to deal with the root causes of our knowledge gap and the conditioned life of the common people of India.
