Let's vote for the deserving one, and no one else

The Supreme Court has done it again, held up hope amid hopelessness. It has told the Election Commission to add a button to the EVM to give a voter the right to reject all the candidates if they are found unsuitable.

After my electoral foray in 2009, I have met dozens of people who said they would have voted for me but did not as they thought their vote would go waste in voting for a candidate who stood little chance of winning.

(In fact I have heard this so often over four-and-a-half years that I wonder if I could have won had all of them indeed voted for me!) And I would say to them, and to the thousands who have told me they don’t vote because all the candidates are bad, that to vote, even for the least likely to win, is to enable democracy to function.

By casting their vote, and yet refusing to vote for one of the biggies with bad track records, one is at least voicing one’s disgust. Now that will change. One can legally voice one’s disgust and disenchantment.

To not vote is to opt out of democracy. In a democracy each one of us counts and must stand up to be counted when the occasion arises. Remember the Helen Keller quote I quoted in my last column? And here is another one from The Man from La Mancha; “This is my quest, to follow the star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far, to fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause….”

To give up on democracy just because ours is far from ideal is to opt out of the belief that a system other than autocracy can exist. To not vote is to accept defeat of the just by the bullies, of the believers of equality by those of the sword.

What does the inclusion of this button mean for parties? That they can no longer bank on bought votes and fatigued or uncaring non-voters and offer up anyone they choose to.

This will mean that the individuals standing for seats will have to be worthy of some confidence, will have to offer a modicum of transparency and efficiency and preparedness to govern, before they are swallowed like bitter medicine.

There is one other right that we need to obtain, and obtain in a fashion that it cannot be misused, and that is the right to recall candidates we have elected and whom we perceive not to be fulfilling their mandates or discharging their duties or indulging in corrupt practices.

This would be like a periodic referendum on elected candidates, a check and balance that would necessitate them to perform, perform well and equitably, govern well and with fairness and justice, raise local issues where they have been sent to raise them, and not get waylaid by the possibilities of wealth and power, forgetting the very people who put them there.

There are people who say that the new right will be misused.

Indians are masters at misusing things, of finding insidious ways of subverting systems, of creating loopholes in tight meshes! But to not try and improve systems because of the fear of their misuse cannot be the right way forward. We must bring in systems that will engender change, and be alert to their subvention.

India’s future is at stake with so many state and national elections coming up. We are being given some tools to right all the wrongs. To make use of them, climbing out of our lethargy is up to us. To quote La Mancha again, that “one such, scorned and covered with stars, still strove with her last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars”.

The writer is a noted danseuse and social  activist