30 June 2007
Election festival
Democracy is the difficult of all forms of government since it requires the widest spread of intelligence. Indian national elections have evinced great interest in he country. Six or seven national parties and not less than 42 state parties participate in the election festival. Other than these, 176 unregistered parties are also taking part in the election. The election campaign is a fury of activity. Like an arrow, the leaders shoot through the country carrying their party’s message to even remote hamlets of the village. Thousands and lakhs of persons flock their meeting and thousands more line the route to catch a glimpse of their party leader. Many gatherings exceed 20000, mostly peasants and weavers who walked from distant villages to see and hear their more-loved leaders. With an ulterior motive - to get materialistic gains, local leaders stick wall posters all along the ways through which their leaders and canvoys cross; hoards are installed; reserve the space on the walls to write in praise of their leaders. Counsellors and ward members wait hours together holding banners for darshan of their leaders. Not only that, a few communal outfits too have stepped in this culture. Electors conduct get actuated by emotions like fear, envy, hatred, love, narrow and wide loyalties. Regional and communal loyalties, personal and caste considerations sway most voters. Money power and muscle power rule the roost and various means like booth capturing and undue influencing the free will of the people by bribing them are adopted to make the elections farce even though the election commission is taking adequate and valuable measures. Politics has become tattered and tainted with crime. The duty of the citizen is not merely to vote but to vote wisely. He must be guided by reason and by reason alone. He must vote for the best man irrespective of any other consideration and party label. The right man in the wrong party is any day preferable to the wrong man in the right party. Growing criminalisation of politics in a big way will virtually break the backbone of parliamentary form. The thunder-stroke of Madurai by-election came to an end anyway by the stringent efforts of EC and the Congress candidate has won it. For a few days, the other parties will be airing their views and then calm.