The central or the constant undercurrent throughout the journey called Mahabharat lies the omni-present human life-force of 'Play by Power'. In most parts the story is about everything that happens in the process of gaining-loosing power, a constant struggle to achieve power or to maintain power. The struggles within myriad tales of Mahabharata are about struggles between 'Dharma-Adharma', the 'righteousness and selfishness', the 'greater common good', the search for consciousness within the confines of daily life, so on and so forth.
A cursory look at the electoral democratic system in India over last few decades and the whole political-process appears nothing but the constant struggle for 'Power', unlike Mahabharata, this power struggle has become too crass in its content as well in the means.
The large proportion of Political leadership in India, appears to have abysmally low clarity in understanding the social, environmental, ecological, economical, technological, financial, cultural or any other dimension of the society. The comprehension of the issues and national threats, opportunities or projected social-scenario's is always within the framework of 'self-appropriation'.
Political party's, individual partymen or election-contestants, news-media managers, and all the stake-holders in this 'power-play' invariably innovate, sometimes knowingly, sometimes by-chance, sometimes unknowingly. i wondered why not try and track the whole electoral process and look for sparks of innovation within the process.
Mahabharata will provide us a backdrop to contextualize and understand some of the 'innovations' that could prop-up as we go along. Innovations within electoral contests, might as well provide us the clues for the vibrancy in the political framework within our society.
