Political thought and behaviour

As a Mumbaikar (i.e resident of Mumbai, India), the recent events connected to Raj Thackeray and his MNS party has worried me. No, not from fear of being beaten up and being driven out of the city (as I’m not a Maharashtrian, but a Bengali from Kolkata in eastern India), but from Raj Thackeray’s view of politics and the bigger question of political thought and behaviour.

It’s no doubt that political thought and behaviour play an important role in our lives. For some of us, like the Mahatma Gandhi and Raj Thackeray, it even becomes a life’s ambition and a driving force. Unfortunately, politics has never interested me. However, with the recent turn of events in my city, I’m beginning to wonder how an individual’s political attitudes, intentions and decisions are shaped.

Are these environmental, ethnic or national dispositions? Or, are they matters of garnering votes, winning elections and achieving political prominence? Are we, Indians, or humans for that matter, naturally communal? Or, is there something else at play which I don’t understand?