Right or wrong, I have been compelled to live under the shadow of ‘dirty’ politics in India – but neither am I capable of adopting myself to that situation nor am I competent enough to write a discourse on it. What I shall do is to look into some of the problematics of Indian politics from the viewpoint of common sense.

Common sense refers to ‘the uncritical and largely unconscious way of perceiving and understanding’ the reality that has become ‘common’ at a historical juncture. It means ‘the incoherent set of generally held assumptions and beliefs common to any given society’. Three points should be noted: First, it is fragmentary, incoherent and may appear inconsequential to some as it is linked with one's common sense or his perception of reality and depends on who he is or where he is from. In other words, ‘one's conception of the world is a response to certain specific problems posed by reality, which are quite specific and “original” in their immediate relevance’. Thirdly, when one talks about ‘commons sense’, one emphasizes on those materialistic elements which are apparently ‘immediate’, a product of ‘crude sensation’, and can be justified as ‘realistic’. The main purpose of this paper is to offer a critique of ‘common sense’, decipher it, and, if possible, supercede it.