Hail the watershed moment!

Wow! What a victory by the UPA, nay Congress. I had been glued to my Internet throughout the counting day. My prayers, viz of any alliance (UPA or NDA) getting a sizable number of seats, were definitely answered. But what was more reveling was a sense of some political emancipation soothing through me all the day.

For the first time, I felt Indian polity has arrived. I was deeply skeptical about the results, considering how the Indian electorate votes. The whole exercise is, or was, based on regional or caste/religion dispensation of the candidates and the voters. The seemingly uneducated/poor rural people have been the targets of the sighs of this wrong and myopic voting pattern. They are granted sympathy of being unrefined, but are also not spared the blame. Ah! They are much beyond our erudition. The results of 2004 National Elections and Assembly Election in AP were the apt case in point. But this time’s results surpass everything.

There is uniform voting all over the country, and the uniformity is in the selection of a national, just and delivering government. Consider the performance of Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Naveen Patnaik in Orissa, SS Chauhan in MP, or the booting out of Left from WB and Kerala. The electorate has rejected incompetence and Mandal/Kamandal malignance. I am going overboard, but the signs are really there for all to see and change. I had felt the same about Indian economy about 10 years back. Now it seems the most maligned of sectors, Indian polity, too is knocking on those doors. It is for us now to open them with arms of acceptance, appreciation and participation, and let the Indian polity usher in an era of deliverance.

India's electoral middle-mix

57 % voting in the fourth phase of election! It is a respectable number if you consider the past figures, but still think, just 57%. The elections are meant to be a pan-population exercise, and not a percentage one.

Even though 57% of India’s population is twice the size of USA’s one, it doesn’t resemble every section of society. I am mostly referring to middle class here. The middle class consists of myriad of people who got educated, weathering several impediments, and are doing white-collar jobs at different parts of the country and world. Most of them are working out of their native places, or are too damned occupied to exercise their suffrage. This middle class is supposedly the backbone of India, giving the finest of technocrats and businessmen to the world. They are considered erudite in real sense too, who can discern the right and wrong of polity, and choose the apt leaders of the nation.

The whole of India has moved with them, but Indian polity still remains an aloof proposition to them or vice-versa. Part of the fault lies with this bourgeoisie, for they remain cocooned in their office shells oblivious to the world outside. Ask an IT professional the names of different chief ministers or government officials; he will be hard pressed to remember even the different states. So it is obvious he is not going to take that extra effort to go to his constituency and vote. On its part, government too is not inclined to do anything to ensure their participation. Its main target, the proletariat section, is there to be taken for a ride.

So, how can we bring this much-needed interaction? First, make voting a paramount, even if not mandatory, exercise. To ensure this, take the domain of voting to outside the constituency area too. IT and telecoms can be great assets in ensuring this. Second, start attaching corporate and office sectors with Indian polity. It is an abhorrent idea on first read, as corporate sector loathes nothing more than association with polity. But it will also help cleanse the political sphere. Finally, do away partly with this notion of single government job holding. A politician or government official, under certain cases, should be allowed to pursue his interests in other private sectors too. A capitalist and a government official need not be antagonists, but in fact can be useful complements. The idea is to mix the current ethos of India with the heart of Indian polity, which still remains a distant zone for normal people, like me.