Most people don’t vote. I don’t remember any election where the voter turnout was more than 65% in my entire life. Most of us book a villa in Lonavla as soon as the election dates are announced. We seem to value our leisure time far more than our own future. I’m not even talking about LTCG rates or foreign policy. The municipal elections where we choose representatives for our own streets haven’t seen even a 60% voter turnout in a city like Mumbai.
You know who does vote diligently? The poorest of the poor. People who are living on daily wages, living in illegally constructed houses under inhumane conditions. But even they are not voting for someone who will make their lives better in the next 5 years.They vote for the person who makes their day better by paying them a thousand rupees in cash, not because they want to, but because the system has taught them to survive day to day. Instant gratification!!
Political parties, of any side-ideology-colour-variation-religion-caste only care about winning the election, by any means. They do not care what means were used to get there. They will employ lying-flattery-misinformation-misdirection-intimidation-bribery and any other way they can think of to get that seat. None of us are naive enough to think these candidates from various parties are rallying so much, fighting so hard (and even breaking each other’s heads open), bribing the voters with so much money, just so that they are the ones serving the people of their ward.
Everyone knows why these people want to be elected. Everyone is aware of the frauds these corporators are going to commit and kickbacks they are going to earn once they are elected. Everyone jokes about how the candidates won’t even be seen again for 5 years once they are elected. Yet all of them seem determined to vote for some ideology, religion, caste and more of similar divisive nonsense instead of the actual issues the municipal corporation is supposed to solve, and this apathy is because of one simple reason.
They are all the same!!
I have heard this reason a thousand times. It does not matter who you vote for. They will defect to a certain party that seems to hold all the upper governments, they will also carry out frauds and corruption like their predecessors, they will become unavailable for the public after the election even if they have been among people all the time while campaigning.
All of this is true. Democracy is a massively faulty system of governance. But it is still better than every other system the world has ever tried. Thousands of years of historical experiments have brought us to this version, and it’s far from perfect. But this is the version that has some hope of working out. This is the one system where we at least get a chance to try and correct course every five years.
But who do I vote for?
I have heard “I no longer agree with the politics of my party, but I believe in the ideology”, “Yes my party may have some problems, but at least they are not as corrupt as the previous government” and many such statements so many times in the last few years.
But we have seen a morally strong party form alliances with their ideological opponents. We have seen a religiously pious party welcome and even celebrate corrupt, fraud, criminal and rapist leaders if that lets them win elections, and incidentally all of this is just one party. Our parents and grandparents have seen the other party do similar things in their days.
The point is, none of them are good people. There are no good people in politics. If honest people try and enter politics the system will slowly turn them like the others. Vir Das once said “How much a leader sticks around is no longer a testament to his abilities, it’s a testament to your tolerance”.
So what do we do? The only thing we can do.
We keep changing them, keep on replacing the incumbents. We must not let them settle in the government for so long that they think they can get away with anything. Let them know that they are appointed employees, not the rulers and they are elected to do specific work. Vote for an underdog independent candidate if you feel like it. Tell him that he will face the consequences if he sells out. Hold him accountable. We can’t just blame the system for being corrupt, we have to push and even force it to do better.
And most importantly, Vote!!
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