Let’s make an assumption. Let‘s assume that there is a Class of hundred students. Let’s assume that the class is a normal class. By normal I mean the class is like any other class. This class has academically talented students. They are the geniuses of batch. They come up with new ideas. They come up with new questions and new solutions. Let’s say, top ten percentile of the class falls in this category.

This class also has usual pool of talented students. Next twenty percentile of the class are just talented. They are academically good. They are socially connected to many people. These are the groups of people you should go and talk to if you want to organize anything in a school. They are good with teachers. They are good with students. They are the ones to raise the points or discuss whenever required.

There is huge pool of good students in a class. They are good in academics plus they have mastered something called the normal workings of the life. These students are much more practical. They are not genius of the batch these are the people who come up with the ways to implementing those genius plans. If you want to organize a show these are the people that are going to work hard. They are going to prepare the stage. They are going to fix the bulb. They are going to run around inviting people. Usually, fifty percentage of the class fall in this category.

Now we have final twenty percentile of the class. These are the people who break in chairs and smash in windows. These are the people who scream from back of the hall.

The time passes on. The class moves on.

The top ten percentile of the people become top professionals. They become doctors, pilots or engineers. Few of them are scientist. They invent and create new things. They are the best in their sectors.

The talented students also emerge successful. They turn into businessman. They master the ways of the market. They land up with good jobs. These people are editors of the top media houses. They think and write. They contemplate and criticize. They are the executive officers and the general managers. They head and lead the projects. They lead the economy.

The good students also manage well. They get involved in normal jobs. They are the civil servants. They are teachers and government officers. They do a noble job of sustaining the economy. They teach our kids. They look after us as army or police. They are responsible for our service. Whether be it in bank or the government officer, these are the people attaining us.

The last twenty percentile go through an interesting transformation. They find something called politics along the way. These are the people that are good at breaking chairs or smashing windows so politics automatically appeals to them. They go and break few of the windows of government offices. They become active party member. They are good at burning. They burn few of the motorcycles during a strike. They are promoted to local leader. They are good at smashing. They go and smash few heads in a fight. They are now regional leaders. They are good at screaming. They will shout and scream. They go to jail. They now become full scale politicians.

The time passes on. The class moves on.

Then, something of an enigma happens. Suddenly bottom twenty percentile of the class takes over rest of the class. The bottom percentile wins the election and forms the government. It comes with the authority to rule rest of the eighty percentile of the class. It devises plans and policies to affect them all.

The power structure of a nation falls on the hand of most incapable hands. The effective policies never come into the picture. The talented pools of students with wonderful ideas aren’t the part of policy sphere. The economic policy of a nation heads toward failure. The second pool of students, who are executive officers, general managers and project leaders, also don’t come into the picture. They are the ones with economic visions. These are the people with the new ideas. These ideas never surface. The policies also lack the practical implications. The third pool of students that is superior in practicality is never the part of the decision making.

What does the rest of the class do in this scenario? Or what do we do in the scenario? We usually complain.

We complain about the ineffective economic policy. We complain about corruption. We complain about drinking water problems. We complain about ineffective government. We complain about the faults in the system. We complain about dirty politics.

Politics is dirty. It’s filthy. There is corruption. There is power struggle. There is manipulation. It’s a gutter. The system is faulty. The government is ineffective. But complaining alone isn’t going to solve the problems. Standing by the side of the gutter with our hands on our nose doesn’t help. The solution is a simple one. If we want a clean gutter then we should clean it. We should enter the gutter itself and clean it inside out. If we want a clean politics then we should be a part of it.

Politics is defined by the type of people in it. If it has morally incapable people indulging in excessive power struggle, we term it as a dirty politics. If it’s in hand of very capable individuals it’s a clean politics. Gandhi defined politics in his own way and so did Mandela. Martin Luther Kind Jr. is another shinning example who dared to redefine the politics itself. Gandhi introduced Satyagraha to the world. Mandela introduced freedom in it. King cleared the racial partisan that existed in American politics. Politics requires new visions and ideas once in a while. These ideas often change the way we perceive about politics. And if we think that politics is dirty in our nation or region, we should be the ones redefining it. If we have visions, ideas or policies we should be fighting for the implementation of such policies. Complaining alone doesn’t help. Watching from the shore alone won’t change anything.

I have seen many guys shrinking their noses when they hear of politics. It’s too dirty for them. But I have also heard them ardently argue on corruption, nepotism, failing government, failing policies and faulty system. They are unhappy with the system and want it to change. Change is only possible when we are the part of change itself. We will have to change ourselves for a change. We will have to part of politics to change it. Politics is dirty. It stinks. It’s a gutter. We all know that. But we will have to enter in it to clean it.

-Tilak K C