Politics, for many not least the youth, seems not to be a natural inclination or interest and yet it has a significant influence in our lives from cradle to the grave. Aristotle’s wisdom or one of his many wisecracks that a human being by nature is a political animal is no less relevant today; even more vigorously and prominently as that nature features in people now than it would have in the Greek philosopher’s city states. The denizens of a nation sandwiched between two South Asian giants, geopolitically put, bear firsthand witness to and are inextricable component of such historical reality.

With every major people’s revolution, be it the 1950 overthrow of the oligarchic Rana regime, 1990 people’s revolution for multiparty democracy and its second edition in 2006 albeit with much comprehensive and larger objectives, more and more people have been politicized. In a country where the desired change in livelihood couldn’t be brought about for the lack of economic development, politics filled the vacuum for all the right or wrong reasons luring even the previously unconcerned or indifferent. The level of preoccupation might be varied no doubt with corresponding ways and level of involvement but it’s there in the consciousness and is glaringly felt.

It’s unsurprisingly felt at the corridors of power, in the polemics of intelligentsia, or in the op-ed sections of newspapers, but no longer is it the domain of only the educated and those at the mainstream. Few would disagree that all the revolutions that we have witnessed would have proven a damp squib if not for a sizable general populace under the sway of political revolt.

The influence of politics or the faith in it might have gone out of hand though with the number of people desiring direct involvement in it ever increasing. Political awareness and not necessarily direct involvement, on the part of citizens certainly, sets the stage for the kinds of change the nation as a whole has envisioned be it social, cultural or economic. Being aware of one’s rights and standing up for them when violated or a good assessment of electoral candidates prior to voting for instance are also significant political acts.

Changed circumstances and increased scope of the discipline have made what is called ‘politics of presence’ extend and expand from the echelons of state power to interest groups and independent organizations as well.