Column

As you read this, several million Indians in Delhi, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, West Bengal and Rajasthan will be going out to vote. In Delhi, I would be cursing the heat standing in line at a neighbourhood school, smiling vacantly at vaguely familiar faces I suspect to be my neighbours, filing past confused electoral officers/ volunteers who cannot find my name even though I am pointing at it on their list, till someone peers at my voter’s ID — where the ‘photo’ is masked in a democratic darkness, a convivial blotch that could pass off as you or me or my dog or the Taj Mahal — glances up at my face to confirm the likeness, nods, and ushers me towards that shrouded, sacred corner ofthe temple of democracy. There, bumbling privately, I will try to find on the colossal candidates’ list the name or symbol that I can bear to vote for. It will not be an enthusiastic election this time, yet many of us will still not miss our date with democracy.

But several million will. Especially among the urban affluent. It’s a Thursday, a government and school holiday, you could take Friday off to snatch a long weekend and short vacation for yourself. Like so many did last Thursday, in the third phase of these elections. When we shrieked in horror because 57 per cent of voters in Mumbai had not voted. How could they not, we wailed, after all that sound and fury about the Mumbai terror attacks, after all those candlelight vigils, speeches and citizen’s initiatives assuring change? How could they let the country down after promising high-class revolution on every television talk show? Just goes to show how disconnected we are from ground realities, how we have once again been misled by the media, like we had been in the last general elections, when the media had informed us about the sure success of the BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign and we had keeled over in astonishment when the Congress-led UPA came to power.

Unfortunately, voter apathy among the privileged is here to stay. Big cities usually have a 50 per cent turnout, which includes the dedicated urban poor. The educated affluent don’t vote half as much as the uneducated poor. The beautiful people have tired of government inefficiency and corruption and have carved out their own private space. They can pay their way through life, avoiding public services. But the poor are entirely dependent on the government, especially on public services, for low-cost living — for water, electricity, the public distribution system, health care, education, transport and other basic necessities. They vote. The underprivileged don’t have the luxury of being disillusioned with the democratic process. But we don’t hear them on chat shows or see them in candlelight vigils.

Right after the Mumbai terror attacks, in end-November, it was comforting to see enthusiastic voting in the Assembly elections - where voter turnout was far higher than average. Delhi had a 57 per cent turnout, Jammu and Kashmir (defying a boycott call by separatists) about 66, Rajasthan 68, Madhya Pradesh 69 and Mizoram 70 per cent. It seemed to be a conscious effort to participate in the process of governance.

We may not have the ideal candidates, we may feel let down, we may have a thousand flaws in our democratic system, but unless we engage in the democratic process we can’t rectify all this. Participation is important. Even if we feel that this election is all about opportunistic arithmetic and post-poll alliances. That this will not reflect our choices, nor our values. I will still take a chance. And go and stand in line cursing the hot Delhi sun, flash that inscrutable voter’s ID, and wind my way into that little corner, where I have exactly the same rights as the PM and the neighbourhood sweeper.