Litmus Test For PM Prachanda

Politics is the game of possibilities. A shrewd politician chooses the best option out of multiple possibilities. Politics is also pursuit to power. Power has been the guiding motive in politics since the evolution of human civilisation. Even idealist thinkers like Confucius, Plato and Aristotle believed that idealism had a little space in realpolitik. However, they advocated ethical means to attain power. Machiavelli, a realist philosopher, is of the view that politics is a vocation that seeks to power by any means — ethical or otherwise depending upon the situation. Mao Zedong went even one step further championing the use of violence stating ‘political power flows out of the barrel of gun’.