Kantipur Daily recently published an article that said that the election was not 'policy-based' but 'personality-based' when parties influenced voters based on personality rather than policy. Before reading that article, I, a Gen-G, was somewhat certain about which public representative to choose and how to fulfill my responsibilities as a voter. However, after reading that article, I realized that embracing a side before the manifestos and policies of political parties are out, influenced only by a sense of disappointment and intuition, and that I was doing injustice to a great responsibility like voting.

In this context, Jonathan Hite's book 'The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion' seems very timely. In the book, Hite has conceived of a 'social intuitionist model' through various 'empirical' tests and research, the main essence of which is that 'reason follows intuition', that is, intuition is produced first, and then logic is created to justify that intuition.

Hite has depicted the relationship between intuition and logic through the metaphor of an elephant and a mahout, in which he has analyzed that the elephant (intuition) is an automatic process that has been developing in the human evolutionary order, and the mahout (logic) has a controlled ability based on language, so the elephant has given its power to this mahout. In this regard, although the elephant is stronger than the mahout, it is not like a dictator, but like a lawyer and his 'client' and says that its origin is not towards the truth of humans but towards survival. But despite this, Hight has made it clear that we can develop the elephant and the mahout as a priority level of intuition through internal reflection and external social discussion, from the tendency to 'confirmation bias' to internal reflection and external social discussion. 

In this context, I have a firm hope that an election will not forget the history of the bloody day of 23 Bhadra and the destructive day of 24 Bhadra. But with this hope, I have felt that seeing our political parties delaying the release of manifestos and conducting door-to-door programs has caused a warning of 'personalist' politics. This type of politics makes us voters forget the logical role of 'policy' and gives all our decision-making ability to the elephant of intuition, not the mahout of reason.

Not only this, it can give birth to 'bhakti' in the future by promoting the current discourse of deification and demonization. Dr., who is called the father of the Indian Constitution, has spoken about the dangerousness of devotion. Bhimrao Ambedkar's warning that 'devotion should not be mixed with politics, devotion leads to salvation in religion, but leads to degradation and dictatorship in politics' seems even more relevant in our recent election environment.

This is clear from our current behavior towards our former representatives, although we should never exempt all former representatives or new representatives from our logical evaluation.     If we take into account Height's explanation of human decision-making capacity and Ambedkar's warning, the answer to the question 'Why vote for the representative we elect?' should be a mixture of intuition and logic, in which logic has a primary level similar to intuition. Therefore, any answer without a manifesto and policy is incomplete and incomplete.

Manifestos and policies are a fundamental means of holding our representatives accountable, a kind of contractual obligation. Our intuitive elephant has been kept alive by those unforgettable memories of Bhadau. Its prevalence is clear from the current behavior towards our former representatives, although we can never exempt all former representatives or new representatives from the evaluation of our logical mnemonic. This logical mnemonic helps us to clear the confusion of ‘who’ and can enable us to answer the question of ‘why’.

Height’s suggestion to bring logical ability as intuitive knowledge through the ‘sharing model’ is focused on discussion – discussion with oneself and social discussion. In the current election environment, I consider policies and manifestos essential for the upliftment of logical ability, realizing the need for a ‘sharing model’ of intuitive knowledge and logical ability for all of us voters. That model can certainly evaluate both individuals and policies to elect public representatives and bring the prevailing 'personalist' politics under control.