Left-Wing, Right-Wing Or Chicken Wing, Taste Is The Real Political Test

We think of taste when talking about whisky, curtains, music, even the company we keep — or at least enjoy. But somehow no one talks about taste when applied to politics.

- Indrajit Hazra

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UNDER THE INFLUENCE

This isn’t about being left-wing, right-wing or chickenwing. You can be a raving free marketeer and still implore the government to impose import tariffs on polka-dotted sponges that you happen to produce from a dinky factory that you can now call an MSME. You can also be a smashing socialist who wants national borders to be opened up for migrants to come into the country, while cussing at the influx of ‘outsiders’ from another Indian state.

This is about the factors that come into play when liking or disliking, approving or disapproving a political product — which essentially comes in two packages: parties, and party leaders. Like choosing a Labrador over a Spitz as a pet, or a sugar daddy over a Babaji as a pillar of support, political choice, too, boils down to your innate, social milieu-crafted, honed-overthe-years aesthetic sense.