This Valentine’s Day, Rethink Love as Politics

Valentine’s Day is often reduced to a celebration of romantic love—roses, proposals and carefully curated declarations. But love, like anger, grief, devotion or hurt, does not exist in isolation from the world we inhabit. Feelings are never merely private; they travel outward. They shape how we belong, whom we trust, what we fear and, ultimately, how we participate in public life.

Published in January 2023, Outlook’s Politics of Feelings issue reminds us that emotions are not distractions from politics, they are its driving force. In an era defined by outrage cycles, identity assertions and digital intimacy, feelings are mobilised, amplified and, at times, weaponised. This special edition asks: What happens when feelings become the language of power?

The issue opened with a striking cover, a handwritten poem by Vikram Seth, intimate and reflective, setting the tone for an edition that foregrounded vulnerability as intellectual inquiry. The poem did not merely decorate the cover; it signalled the magazine’s intent to treat feeling as text, as argument, as politics.

At the heart of the issue was Arundhathi Subramaniam’s cover essay, which examined the shifting meaning of devotion. Historically rooted in spiritual bhakti traditions, devotion today often manifests as political allegiance — intense, unquestioning and emotionally charged. The essay traced how faith-like loyalty has migrated from the sacred to the civic, shaping the language of nationalism and leadership.

Another powerful strand in the issue reflected on loneliness and the pandemic’s emotional afterlife , how prolonged isolation altered our relationship to touch, presence and intimacy. The absence of physical proximity exposed the fragility of human connection, even as digital spaces attempted to compensate. The essays asked what happens to societies when loneliness becomes structural, not accidental.

Several contributions turned to the economy of outrage and grievance, exploring how hurt and resentment are amplified in media ecosystems. Feelings, the writers argued, are curated and circulated, anger becomes performance, victimhood becomes identity, and outrage becomes a mobilising tool. In doing so, the issue probed how personal pain is transformed into collective politics.

Revisiting Politics of Feelings this Valentine’s Day expands the idea of what love can mean. It asks us to consider not just romantic affection, but empathy as resistance, devotion as power, loneliness as policy, and hurt as narrative. Because in the end, politics is not only about ideology or governance. It is about what we feel  and what we are encouraged, persuaded or compelled to feel.