Lok Sabha elections are round the corner and we are going to have to witness a huge propaganda drive all over again. We all shall be asked to vote. Vote for our future. Vote for our country. Vote for expressing our support the institution of democracy. Vote for the best candidate. We will be told to vote – why (?) because it is our right.
So – will you vote? I can’t say about you. But no Sir – I won’t. I never have and neither will I vote in the foreseeable future.
Have you ever thought about the harm that you do to this country by using your Oh (!) such precious vote? Most of you would have voted in some of the Assembly and Parliament elections. You would have voted for the best of the candidates in the fray. I mean the one who you think would do all the best things in life and would develop your region or area or for that matter your country as a whole – isn’t it? Good. You did your part of the destruction. Allow me to show you how. Allow me – to tell you how you all have allowed systematic decimation of the fabric of this country by using your vote to elect our representatives.
We are asked to vote for one of the several candidates that are in the fray. More often than not (if not in all the cases) we are asked to select the lesser of the evils and vote for him or her. And you dutifully cast our votes in favor of the lesser of the devils. Have you ever thought of how this same smaller elected devil takes your precious vote and makes a mockery of your trust? This is the same small devil that goes up to represent you in the Parliament and then uses his power to do everything that goes against our basic ethos Any scam or scandal, a murder or a loot – you will find that your beloved representative is involved in some or the other way. He is involved in the scams, He is involved in the bribery cases, he is involved in Rapes, in Murders and worst of all – he is involved in looting the money of the same people that perhaps got him or her elected. You chose him and he loots you in turn. Some justice that! Huh.
And no – That is not all – wait till I finish this off.
Look further – You vote a Devil to represent you and that person in turn rules you or rather thrusts his will on you. You elect this sick person to rule you and he ends up making abnormal laws to govern you! A candidate who does not have the basic minimum educational qualification gets to make laws for you and me. That’s some democracy I say! An uneducated person with dubious intention and a criminal background makes laws for you and forces you to follow them too. He who does not know a right from wrong is supposed to debate and tell what is right or wrong for us? I mean have you ever heard of it? Can you justify it? He who does not adhere to any law himself is telling we educated and proportionately more law abiding people what laws we should follow? C’mon is there any sense left in this world?
And hey – he does not stop there – now does he? You have given him powers and he uses it to its optimum capacity. Who cares if he makes wrong use of the powers? He does all that wrong things and then expects you to fall all over him – to praise him and vote for him – again and again. And boy – don’t you stand in long queues to do exactly that! But he is not at fault. Now is he? He is not at fault because you my dear friends have made him feel like a God. And you make him invincible by electing him again. And how? Yep – by using your vote. You all do want this country to fall on its knees. I have no doubt about it. I mean how can you digest that? We see everyday how MPs and MLAs are sold. We see how they take bribes – thanks to Tehelka – we now know the modus operandi. We hear them talk on phone offering money to switch over parties. We see how they are involved in so many scandals. But then we are not bothered since it is all a political game we are told. Huh! And we do believe them. Matters have come to such a state where Corruption does not even raise an eyebrow. A Harshad Mehta becomes a hero. A Charles Shobhraj is looked up in awe. We tell our kids – our younger ones to shun lying and avoid corruption – but we ourselves don’t have the conviction to stand against the corrupt.
Look at the chain of reactions/events that you trigger by casting your precious twin votes. You elect a representative for you in both State Assembly and in the Parliament. And by casting your vote you have:
· Given the power of representation of your own self and your problems to a man/woman whose integrity is in question.
· You have given power to the elected representative to make laws and govern you. A person who wastes no opportunity to fall on others feat to get his way out of trouble with utmost indignity. A person who wastes no opportunity to frisk away taxpayers money (Your Money) for his ulterior ends. A person who himself has a dark and shady background makes laws for you. And you expect justice to be done? No wonder you get acts like TADA and POTA to contend with. You are made to believe that it is best for the country. Country? Do they really care about the welfare of the country?
· You have given this person the rights to elect the constitutional head of the country – The President himself! You expect the best person to become President in such scenarios? You should be thankful that President does not have major play in the politics and the policies designed by these people – or else you would not have seen some brilliant men getting elected. Still, the election of President as you must be aware is not on merits but on whether he is a troublemaker or not. Everybody knows why people like T.N.Seshan can never become the President of the country – because he will not take the games of our elected Representative lying down. He will react. And as you must be aware a President in our constitutional system has immense individual powers. So your elected representatives would rather have a puppet than a man who has his conscience in place. To the credit of some past Presidents though they have proved to be any thing but Puppets – at least in some instances.
· You have given the person the right to elect the Head of our Parliamentary Democracy – The Prime Minister! You expect a noble and an honest guy to become a Prime Minister? Hmmm… your expectations are pretty high.
· You have given him the power to decide who will be our representative in the Upper House i.e. Rajya Sabha. He uses his right to vote in the parliament to elect the Rajya Sabha members. So what? Well – here’s what you have done. By electing a corrupt man or a woman you have ensured that another corrupt person (in all likelihood a corrupt man will not chose an honest person – it would defy logic) sits in the Rajya Sabha too. Which again means that these people in Lok Sabha pass a Bill or a constitution amendment to suit their own interests and the same corrupt Rajya Sabha members pass it to the President for signature! Nothing wrong – except that the Bill actually affects you and me as the normal law abiding citizens.
· You have given him powers through your vote to disburse the funds, provided by the Government of India, for welfare and development of the country. You expect them to disburse the money in a just manner? They are the lesser of the Evils – remember? Now c’mon – you only elected him. You expect him to be at the height of his honesty and use the fund to raise the standards of living of the public? Has anybody ever done it? Even Rajiv Gandhi had to comment that out of every Rupee that is given for development to your elected representative – only 15 paise reaches the actual beneficiary. Welfare? Huh.
· You have voted a person because he/she may be representing a particular political party. But does he/she honor that commitment or trust shown by you. It takes but a moment for him/her to switch their loyalty to the opposing party and that too by accepting huge bribes. Remember the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs accepting money and voting to save the Government of the day? Surprisingly no one talked about whether giving or taking money was wrong in that case. What everybody especially the politicians talked about were whether the money was given inside or outside the Parliament! And since it was given inside the Parliament – the act could not be punished as MPs have immunity for an act inside the Parliament! These people are still your representatives in the Parliament/ State Assemblies. And how? Oh! You elected them dear readers – remember?
· You by casting your vote to this person again and again have given him/her such powers that he/she becomes difficult to dislodge. The Raja Bhaiyyas, The Jayalalithas, The Shahabuddins, The Laloos, and so many more are but a few examples of the same. They come to your home initially to ask for vote. Later they kick you to the polling stations to make you vote. And you poor powerless citizens of the country feel entirely helpless. And who gives them so much of power? You using your… remember?
· You have given them powers to control the executive administrators. You cry and shout foul when you see an honest Director of General or a Collector being removed or transferred. But did you expect any thing else? Did you expect the criminal – the devil you have elected to keep an honest Administrator in his/her region? You must be dreaming I say.
· You give this person power and immunity from every act of corruption that he/she indulges in. No wonder it is not The Bangaru Laxmans or The Jaya Jaitleys who are behind the bars or in the court. It is the Tehelka news portal employees and the owners who are harassed and brought to court, It is not The Fernandes of the political group who are out of power for Coffin Scam – it is some Army Personnel who have had to face the Court Martial. And similarly it is not the Kuntes, The Naidus who are removed from the respective political parties for the Telgi Stamp paper scam. It is Mumbai Police Commissioner who is behind bars. Why? Because he could not fight and election and become your leader. It is not The Judeos, The Jogis who are being prosecuted for accepting unlawful money. It is the people who planned and gave them the money. It is not the Jayalalithas and Mayawatis or the Thakreys who are behind bars for corruption or incitement of communal passion. How can they be arrested? They have YOU and your lifetime vote with them. Can anybody touch them? C’mon they can’t be brought to book? Isn’t it? Boy – you all do need some doze of rightful thinking.
You don’t need to be brilliant to understand how you have been systematically destroying the country. The corrupt have become so powerful that you are not able to dislodge them now. And who has made them into such powerful power brokers? It is you and only you. You have given them reason to believe that politics is not only for scoundrels but a safe heaven for Criminals too.
Strange are your ways. You - who consider yourself to be fair and efficient, actually elect these people to create such havoc. Times are such that if someone comes up to you and says that he/she is an honest person – you give him/her your most crooked wry and a sly smile and end up doubting his/her own judgment. Honest? Huh. It has become a rarity today to find an honest man. In the chain of corrupt system, if you are being honest – you can be sure of being thrown out. That’s how the system works these days and that is because of your adamant nature of voting the lesser of the evils to power. Remember -Corruption does not start at the bottom. It is one of the rare things that grows at the top and then spills down to the lower echelons.
Wake up friends – because there isn’t much left. Don’t wait for something dramatic to happen – because it won’t happen on its own. You have helped in creating this damage. Only you can bring it in order by taking stern corrective action. You have voted too many times now. It’s enough. Stop it. You have no right to give this country a corrupt administrator just because someone asks you to vote. You have no right to handover a corrupt system to the next generation to come. You have no right to preach honesty and support the corrupt. And hey – You have no business to stand silently in a corner and vote and allow these buggers to loot and destroy my country.
We have to uproot this bane of society from its root. The only way of destroying it is to cut the tree from the top itself. You can nurture the root and get a fresh tree later. It is the only way you can rectify your follies. Democracy may not be the best form of governance – but in the situation you don’t have anything better. So stand up and be counted. Corruption has become multi hydra and we need to come together to fight it.
I ask you – Not to vote. Ask your Parents, Your Sisters, Your Brothers, Cousins, Friends, colleagues and who ever you can talk to – not to vote. Let us bring the voting percentage down by as much as possible. Let us make every one of the representatives realize that the majority of the eligible voters have not elected them. Let us make the Election Commission think on the reasons of low voter turnout. Let us create an atmosphere for a debate on the same in all the TV channels, in newspapers and any electronic or print media. If we can achieve a lower voting percentage in elections to the tune of 10-15 percent – you think it will go unnoticed? It will create uproar. Our Fourth Estate is very agile and they shout about every other thing. They cannot possibly stay quite on this. Can they? Let us force the Parliamentarians, the lawmakers to think on the ways to bring the people back to the polling booth to vote. Let them make laws for the minimum qualification required for a candidate to file his or her papers to start with. Let them make rules on the minimum percentage required for a candidate to be declared victorious. Let us force them to make laws for themselves for a change. Let us not make it easier for them to live peacefully while we suffer. Let us make them earn their seat in the esteemed and august house of Parliament and Assembly. Let us make them earn the victory with their deeds and behavior – the way we earn our respect and life. Make them earn the right to take oath on our behalf in the Parliament. Let us make them realize the truth – and the truth is – if not for us they would not be sitting in the Parliament. The truth is that they have to work for the constituency they represent. The truth is that we have given them a responsibility and they will have to deliver the goods if they wish to get re-elected. The truth is that we elect them to serve us and not to rule us. The days of being ruled are gone. Sadly we – the citizens of this country – have still not realized that. Remember if you are ready to be ruled – well – rulers will find you and crush you. Democracy makes the Common Man the Ruler and all the elected representatives of the country as servants. Till we get this equation right – we won’t benefit from this institution everyone calls as DEMOCRACY.
Let us bring a revolution – A revolution of its own kind. Together we can achieve it. I won’t rest till I achieve it.
And till I achieve it – I will not Vote.
Its Montoo..
