Elections Ideology

Elections stripped of ideology signal the rise of “marketisation” of politics–parties become brands, candidates turn into commodities and voters are treated as consumers to be enticed

- Manoj Kumar

I write this while the Bihar Assembly elections are just a few days away, and we all know that elections are the most visible expression of people's sovereignty. They are the heartbeat of a republic that lives through periodic renewal—people delegating power through the voting machine. Yet, when elections are stripped of ideology and reduced to a mechanical ritual of numbers, promises, and spectacle, democracy begins to decay from within. It may still look vibrant, but its soul has departed.

What gives democracy meaning is not merely the act of voting, but the ideas that animate those votes. Elections are supposed to be contests between competing worldviews—visions about justice, equality, governance, and the moral direction of society. When ideology disappears from this canvas, what remains is a noisy marketplace of opportunism where principles are traded for seats, and convictions are sacrificed at the altar of expediency. Today, one must ask—what does an election mean when the only metric of success is power, and when the grammar of politics is reduced to arithmetic? When every defection, every alliance, and every volte-face is justified in the name of “practical politics” or the false wisdom of “Chanakya-niti”, it is the people who are betrayed. For democracy is not about who wins power; it is about why that power is sought and how it is used.