The Indian Political tamasha is on display in all its color and splendor yet again. While, we the educated, self-proclaimed upmarket lot with the white collar jobs might take to cribbing and complaining about the ill-managed country with goons for politicians whose only claim to fame is raking up controversial issues to entice the minority or the slum-dwelling populace, it’s time to do a reality check. I do not wish to use the oft-repeated lines on television talk shows or democracy debates. My only intent is to introspect as part of the former lot as to why I did not, like the rest of my fraternity, cast a legitimate vote or raise a voice or to do the least, put a request for whatever grievance I had with my local councilor or MLA. If I am so sophistically educated in the best convent in the city or an engineer or a postgraduate from the oh-so-prestigious Bombay University, then why did I not put to civic as well as civil use my suffrage rights. Why did I not practice the woman suffrage rights that were fought for by American women in the 18th century, that travelled around the globe in the form of women liberation movements. Why did I not bother to scribble on a small piece of paper at the polling booth instead of simply complaining about the bad roads, the loudspeakers used by the slum inhabitants in my area post 10 pm or the ill-structured traffic management system and delayed flyover constructions adding to the traffic woes. These questions are rhetorical questions meant for all the well-educated, sophisticated, middle-class or elite Indians like me who talk about taking up jobs in multinationals to shape the future of the country.
A little bit of psychoanalysis has helped me realize that we are shaken towards taking an initiative only when the need arises. The sudden surge in the upper-middle class and the elite voters (atleast by the count of registrations so far) is not solely due to campaigns like Jaago Re or Lead India ’09, but because 26/11 brought to the fore a need for security for us presumptuously secure urban Indians in the form of a rude shock. Why do you think politicians gamble in vote-bank politics while playing the card of religion and the unalloyed love for their matrubhoomi by fighting for privileges, reservations and jobs for the localites and the downtrodden? Simply because these people reciprocate with needs. The vote banks need the politicians and they in turn need the vote banks. The requirement is mutual and so is the relationship. They need the politicians for better sanitation facilities, for uninterrupted supply of water and electricity, for jobs in government undertakings, for labour rights and minimum wages. We never needed them since we have always been happily ensconced in our cosy shells with an incessant supply of water, electricity, basic municipal facilities and the other much-coveted luxuries that can be bought with the flash of money. We did not quite need a robust political and intelligence system devoid of bureaucracy, corruption and red tape until we saw a colleague at work who lost his arms in the train bomb blasts on 7/11 or a cousin who lost her husband at the age of 27 to the terrorist attacks at Taj, so much for blowing her hard-earned money for a birthday dinner at the Golden Dragon. So, the poor girl’s tragic loss has led me to rethink. It could be me. It could be you. It could be any one of us. It happened 16 years back. My parents were shaken when my mother’s friend lost 3 male family members, her father, brother and husband in the ’93 bomb blast at the Passport office. No consolation or compensation can ever reimburse her loss. We didn’t make an attempt to move out of the stupor then. But every now and then I see an action replay of the blood-stained gory death and destruction, of injustice to an individual or to a sect of people, to the widowed wife of a defense personnel or the defenseless mother of a riot victim or a prisoner of war, a Jessica Lall or a Nitish Katara, I feel the urge to inch forward, to do the needful, to do what is necessary, to protect the interest of every citizen of the country. Need incites action. We must not forget that we need efficient representatives at the Centre and the State. Because, if we don’t, then redundant reservations will continue to haunt us as a provision in the Constitution of India for another 60 years, another Tytler will walk away scot-free from the Court premises after having orphaned hundreds of children in distressed families in another state that might relive the nightmare of Punjab or Gujarat, another Banerjee might put at stake the means of livelihood of thousands of decrepit farmers and laborers by driving out an industrialist who came with the blueprint of financially empowering the state and its people.
I drew inspiration from a man from the Dharavi slums in Mumbai who educated the urban literate Indians about section 17-C in the voters discretion list on National Television while being interviewed by a reporter from NDTV. So, I must thank with complete humility this man, probably an unskilled laborer, for enlightening me and breaking my myth about being empowered just because I’m educated. So I learnt my first real lesson of democracy from him: education alone does not empower a people. For empowering themselves, citizens must cast the all-important vote and make rightful, sensible use of the civil rights conferred by the Union of India by electing the right representatives. I remember my Civics teacher in school giving us directives about the election process in the country. She went on to elaborate ‘The heads of state are merely our constitutional representatives. We elect them and they speak on behalf of us in the central and the state assembly. They are liable to answering us, implementing reforms for us and safeguarding us the citizens of the country. They are in a position of power because of us. We give them the power that they exercise.’ An afterword that I’d like to add: cast the vote irrespective of the need because you never know when the need shall arise.
Let’s implement in deeds the respect for the country that ‘Jai Hind!’ truly encompasses.
