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ShareWill the proposed closure of offices, shops, malls, entertainment centres and the like make a difference? It will if you assume that people didn't vote the last time around, because going to work made it impossible to do so. As far as I could tell, this wasn't so at all, because most establishments gave time off to their employees from the lowliest peon to the highest executive, so that they could exercise their franchise.
As for the closure of recreational centres, this is a completely hare-brained idea, the kind only politicians and their bureaucrats could come up with. If someone would rather go shopping or to a movie or to a restaurant in preference to voting, you shut those outlets and they will stay at home. To read, watch TV or just laze around. All the state will succeed in doing is to cause a loss of revenue to itself as well as to all the establishments that are shut down. It will also mean a loss of money to a huge number of daily wage earners. Have the bureaucrats with their protected salaries thought of that? Have politicians with their unearned income thought of that? As it is, the ridiculous system of dry days connected to elections does enough damage to the economy.
Does that mean the government should not try to do anything about electoral apathy? No one can dispute the fact that it is a citizen's duty to vote. It also goes without saying that many citizens do not voluntarily do their civic duty, whatever field that might be in. For example, it's our duty to pay civic taxes, but most of us would avoid it if we could get away with it. It is our duty to ensure safety on the roads to prevent injury to ourselves and others, yet many people drive recklessly, or distract themselves by talking on mobile phones and so on. In other words, citizens often behave like children so there arises the need for someone to play mummy and daddy. And who else can do it but our mai baap sarkar? The problem is that governments have no idea about parenting and no Mr Spock has written a bible for them, so each one flounders on in its own blundering way.
But will even the most enlightened government be able to compulsorily make its citizens vote? You could argue that it is your fundamental right not to vote, not even to caste an abstaining vote, (if they introduce a last box in the ballot paper saying 'none of the above'). But suppose that argument does not hold, how come compulsory franchise be imposed? Some countries have tried fining citizens for not voting, but in such a huge country like ours, who will keep track, who will collect the fines and how?
The main reason for electoral apathy has to do with our general contempt for politicians and political parties. People say, who do I vote for when no candidate in my constituency is worth voting for? That is the crux of the problem. We saw it at work at the last general elections when an electorate fired up by 26/11 to become politically aware, still stayed aware from the polling booths.
In short, whatever politicians do to try and make us vote, will not work, unless they are willing to do the impossible. Which is not reforming the political system but reforming themselves.
