For the past one year , I have been asking my friends to get their name registered on electoral voter id list and since April,2009, most of my friends have registered for voting barring a few. All of them took active part in discussions before the voting day and I got to know many issues and the problems causing them via the heated arguments ensued between my friends and their idea behind voting instead of siting idle on voting day. Before lambasting others for not voting, here are some of the drawbacks that Indian democracy has and the mindset of a common Indian while he decides to vote.
Since I began reading newspapers seriously instead of just using it to make rocket planes, it took a long time for me to realize that India is very dynamic and complex country. Here any thing is possible so is Indian democracy. I am here deliberately differentiating between democracy and Indian democracy. In India people are greedy and this applies to all. You can't live as Mahatma Gandhi in todays world is a fact that everyone knows. All people exhibit some kind of anxiety, tension and they face numerous other problems in today's world. No one lives like a king with all his servants tending him day and night. People in India are concerned here more about money than health and that's a fact. I am stressing here that greediness and the course of greediness on which money is earned in India on name of democracy is more painful than any other aspect of India. Changing attitude of Indian people is one thing many people have tried but given complex nature of surroundings in which we have grown and the circumstances due to which people are obligated to behave is very hard to understand.
Today's media does a great job of portraying the drawbacks of our democracy. If a dog bites man it is no story but if a man bites dogs it is breaking headlines' Why? Because the media is also after earning money.The attitude like ' chalta hai', ' Khud bhi khoa aur dusro ko bhi khilao' is inscibed on the minds of people due to surroundings. For the past few years I have tried to stop people from littering on local trains but on the next journey it starts again with the attitude ' apna kay jata hai, railway apne ko janawar(animals) ki tarah leke jati hai, mera kya jata hai ki kuch kachra failane se gandigi badhegi!' '
People tend to forget the drawbacks of this kind of attitude. As I had already mentioned, this type of problems are neglected when people have problems related to their money.
Money is the root cause of all the evils in our society. In India, getting into politics is the easiest way to earn cheap money. After all in India we have dynasties of families running our country since independence. They are elected in spite of their mistakes in past as people have something stamped on their brain that it brings stability in our country but what about the development? These families are sure that they will get elected whatever the problems the common man faces. This happened during the Maharashta state assembly elections!The party that has inflicted lots of problems to common people like power crisis, increasing tax but still they get elected! Isn't that ironical? But this is called Indian Democracy. Here anything is possible, even proving a dead man is alive!
Now coming to people who abstain from voting and enjoy the voting day as a holiday writing posts about not voting giving justifications about it.
Let's start with unavailability of lays potato chips in our locality. If a brand X gives me 1 rupee commission for one packet of potato chips sold while the brand Y gives me 50 paise commission per packet which would I prefer displaying it in my shop? It should be understood about the dynamics of money when the shopkeeper keeps a product for selling in his shop.
Let's turn towards the old watchman guarding our buildings. They charge a monthly 2500 bucks while an able bodied watchman cost 7000 bucks to hire. If this proposal comes in the annual AGM meeting of society, 90% of members object to it as it involves increasing the monthly service charges which in turn affect the monthly budget of our household. And people generally compromise on security in turn of money being saved. Also good people think that old watchmen are saved from depending on their not so able sons who generally would have thrown them from their own house! Here also the circumstances of recruiting old watchmen is complex and should have been understood.
From the above cases, I would like to present before you a complex analogy of things on which our country is running. Those who don't understand the this simple analogies simply migrate to a developed nation and this is called Brain drain. A Somalian would like to live in India but an Indian would prefer living in Canada than in India. Why? Many reasons beyond the scope of this post.
Is dictatorship or communism better than democracy? If you want taste of it go to China and write about human rights violation on your blog. Next day you will not be heard by anyone. Is this better than a democratic country where you at least get to express your views. Friends we are still in better position than our counterparts.
The main idea of me writing this post after such long time is that instead of complaining about the present situation in our country why can't you do a small job of voting as a dutiful citizen of India. At least, you have taken part in this painful democratic process. Many flaws are there in our system but you can't complain about it every time. If you can't adjust, I can say only one thing, things will be very difficult for you in future.
