Politics-as-usual is boring!

This morning's Hindustan Times carries an article by Vir Sanghvi in which he says something I have guiltily felt for a long time. Indian politics is boring, he writes. I want to start this blog off by saying something sacrilegious for political scientists: politics is boring. Mr. Sanghvi speculates that this may be due to the fact that the present cabinet is largely made up of non-descript MPs and hopes that it is due to the pre-occupation of Indians with their own lives.

I am trying hard to remember when it is that I lost interest in Delhi (or any state capital) politics. Political courtships and conspiracies are only of interest, I have long suspected, to those who gain by being seen as having the inside scoop. A snobbish, but still 'Page 3,' variety of interest in politics. Of course, it is always possible to list many reasons for why we should care about some of these things--accountability being an important one. Personally, however, I am mostly really bored.

What keeps me excited about the field I have chosen to be in and what keeps me reading the newspaper--its most constant supplier of questions and perspectives? Stories like this one in today's Times of India:

Sharmila Ganesan, Mumbai's hidden panchayats, Times of India, January 14, 2007.

Initiatives like this immediately pique my interest. Are there others like this? Do they really work as well as the reporter says? What are the phone conversations between the 'Slum Police Panchayat' officers and the Police Commissioner like? It is challenging to imagine all the changing power equations in this setting. The Panchayat members vis-a-vis their families and their community. Even the local police station. The Police Commissioner--what happens when another officer comes along who is less comfortable with this democratic arrangement. When Panchayat members can call the Commissioner directly, what happens to the authority of the local police station? Does the work of the Commissioner increase in the interest of decreasing the work of the police stations?

On the front page, the Foreign Minister has gone to Pakistan and some things have been said and done. This is supposed to be my area of interest and expertise. But what is exciting to me is tucked away elsewhere, one small story about one small experiment, raising dozens of questions.