Vote for 'Us'

'Politics is like that. Everyone is corrupt. You cannot change anything here. This was how it was right from the beginning of time. There will be someone in the electoral rolls who would, in the process of building his fortune through politics, hand something out to me and I would have to vote for him. See Jeeva, come to terms with reality. Nobody is clean. You can't stay without voting. Be practical like us. When five thirsty people are fighting for a single glass of water, you cannot expect them to queue up and take turns. The world is so bad and you may have to slug it out with them even if you don't like fighting'.

This pretty much sums up the mind of the educated middle class voter whom I personally know, under different faces and personas. Some of those I have seen were fuming at the Election Commission which, at some places was denying people the ‘privilege’ of getting paid for votes. A friend of mine, who badly wanted money for his vote was the one who had told me secretly a few months ago, that he whipped his son for copying in his exams. People think money for vote, sometimes could be your birthright.

Some of those who share the aforementioned views about election and politics, must be reminded about a few facts. To those people who assume, that the world has always been bad and rulers have been selfish and as time progresses, we are fast nearing the end of the world which would resemble something like the dystopian environs of Mad Max, let me tell you that you are grossly mistaken. Yes. You are mistaken.

A few thousand years ago. Men were slaves. They could not marry the women of their choice. Even if they did, the bride had to spend her first night with their master. The word ‘salary’ did not make any sense. They had no land. They worked, they slept, they worked, they slept and slept once and for all when they crossed their 30s. They had children who continued where their fathers left. The cycle was endless, or so the ruling classes thought. Government? The landowners and merchants decided their ruler based on whom they trusted to protect their interests. The government guaranteed the right of the master to take the life out of a slave at his whim.

In the next few centuries, men became serfs. A serf was nothing but a slave with a land. He could marry a woman of his choice but was not permitted to leave his land. The appalling working conditions persisted. Women were not allowed outside their kitchens. They could not inherit the land of their fathers or husbands. But man was free, at least on some aspects of personal freedom. He could cook and eat something that he wished, lest he could afford it. There too, a guy like you and me could not choose his governor.

In the next few centuries, men became workers. They could marry women and have children, make them study and try to give them a better future. They worked again like they did during the days of slavery and serfdom close to fifteen hours a day. Even children were not spared from work which the government did not mind. Women were allowed to work. They still had lesser rights than men who were at least allowed to vote.

In the last two centuries, men have remained workers but with 'rights'. The law says he cannot be employed for more than eight hours a day. It guarantees a minimum wage subject to revision based on rising costs of living, a provident fund and pension on some occasions. Women can inherit property, divorce husbands if they want to. Above all, they too for the first time, are allowed to vote. Children, at least on paper, are not allowed to work.

So this is how we have evolved to this day. Okay let me put a question across. How did a slave, who did not even have a right to live, never mind eat or vote, graduate into becoming a worker, who could form associations, collectively bargain, achieve a pay hike, sue his employer if he was fired illegally, bring a country to a standstill by choosing to strike and above all, vote out a powerful government if it did not work for him?

How did he attain so many rights? Did some Messiah like Narendra Modi jump from heavens and liberate the hapless masses from their suffering whenever it went beyond tolerance? Do you people think so?

Every change for the better came from nobody else, but the 'people'. The masses. The collective consciousness. Every individual felt the need for a change in his bones. Every change came, not from people who believed in the immutability of their destiny, not from people who rented their wives to their masters for a night so as to ensure existence, not from people who betrayed their fellow men for an extra slice of bread, not from people who assumed that world was bad and cruel from time immemorial, not from people who thought they were 'practical' and hence wiser than those who think otherwise, not from people who oozed defeatism from every pore of their body believing in some 'fatalist' theory that their religion introduced them to.

You can trust me if I tell you that every right so far attained has been through the 'collective action' of the masses against an overpowering establishment strongly backed by elites and populated by oligarchs. People shed blood, wives lost their husbands, mothers lost their sons and daughters and children their parents. If those martyrs, who sacrificed themselves so that their children would lead better lives come to know of the fact that we people are actually demanding money to cast a vote, I would leave it to you to imagine their reactions.

The most appalling of the facts that I came across recently was that, it was only the educated middle classes who cannot wait for their leaders to pay them for their votes.

'Voter Apathy'

I am not demanding that all our working classes must immediately come to the streets and get ready to shed their blood to achieve a political revolution like how our naxalites fantasize. I admit that our frustration towards the system has not reached such a boiling point.

All I expect from us is a free and honest expression of what we feel about our political establishment. If you are one among those aforementioned voters who are completely disillusioned with the system, you may consider choosing NOTA or you may choose to stay at home. If a considerable size of the electorate decides to boycott voting, it would certainly be viewed with some serious attention and not ignored as 'voter apathy' by the establishment.

You know what 'voter apathy' really constitutes? Refusal to follow politics as much as we follow cricket or cinema; refusal to learn about the history of our main political parties, the stands they took on various issues at various points of time; refusal to care about the consequences your vote may bring upon on others by relying solely on the personal 'benefit' your vote may reap for you. Can our middle classes deny the fact that a sizable portion of them, in spite of their knowing Modi's involvement in Gujarat riots 2002, vote for him because he might raise the income tax slab to 5 lakhs? Aren't we still ready to vote for DMK or ADMK in our constituency if one of their candidates ensure good roads in our vicinity, totally ignoring their dubious record of governance all these years?

Please bear in mind that the overwhelming vote that Modi won on three occasions in Gujarat assembly elections, cast by our Hindus in consolidation, regardless of what consequences it might bring upon their fraternal Muslims, ensured that Muslims remained and remain as second class citizens in Mahatma Gandhi's state. It is difficult to rent or purchase a property if you are a Muslim in Gujarat and Muslim children are treated like Dalits in their schools. On the eve of the 2014 elections, I was advising my friends against voting for Modi on account of Gujarat’s poor record on Child Malnutrition and farm suicides. One of my friends (he was a Hindu), who as usual turned a deaf ear to me, told me that he would vote for Modi because he wanted a Uniform Civil Code so that Muslims would no longer enjoy undue privileges. I am sure that people like him voted Modi to power and I leave it to them to decide on how much blame they would take as farm suicides have increased by 26 percent over the last two years. Can these people deny the fact that among those 26 percent, a majority of them would be Hindus and can a Uniform Civil Code be of any use now?

Subordinating the interests of other communities to that of one's own and choosing a representative based on that is the biggest act of betrayal an individual can perpetrate upon his fellowmen. I personally know a friend of mine who keeps voting for a party because its leader belongs to her caste. If Indians did not vote like that, we would not be having caste or religion based parties throughout India.

So here is my humble request. All these years right from our births, we have never really been allowed to express or choose our personal preferences. We studied engineering because the markets wanted us to. We married women whom we never knew or understood because our parents wanted us to. We pay lakhs to private schools to educate our children because our neighbors want us to. We fornicate on the very first night of staying with our unknown partner, because our planets wanted us to. 

At least now, for once, let us express ourselves with the utmost honesty on an issue that is a zillion times bigger than those in which we never were given a chance to choose. Your political representative has no way of knowing that you chose him for lack of an alternative. Every vote you cast for him, would obviously be construed as a tacit approval for his corrupt practices and as a strong reaffirmation of faith in a system which you people are totally fed up with. The voting machine does not have options to display colors of varying intensity based on how much you trust your representative. It is only binary, win or lose.

Please remember that we were not the first generation to turn 'practical' by inventing the method of choosing the 'least hated one' among the contestants and let us not fool ourselves into believing that such a ‘wise’ approach might change our society for the better. Right from Independence, our grandfathers and fathers have been voting this way successfully ensuring that every ruler of the present belongs to a 'better and improved class of criminals' than the preceding ones. And this is why we are waiting for people of the past like Kamaraj or Gandhi or Shastri to rescue the country from the ever growing destruction we have brought upon ourselves.