India, the biggest democracy, and in few days, I am going to be the part of the biggest democratic election of the world. So, I just thought to take out time and write something about the same.
There is a sense of responsibility and duty without any doubts for voting. But I was just thinking some days back, “Is my vote going to count? Is it going to make any difference?” The immediate reply that I got from my mind was, “NO, it won’t make any difference, cos the candidate you vote for isn’t going to make any difference if he gets elected, I m sure he would be just sitting, chilling in the Parliament, enjoying his status of a top citizen of India, going for some international tours as an ambassador of India, doing unruly behavior or doing a bollywood movie or acting unruly or indulging into Corruption and once found guilty, he would resign and then jump in for the next elections..!!”
We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate. ~Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard
Thereafter, I was invited to be a part of the panel in two panel discussions on the role of youth & students in this election. It was indeed a great experience and fortunately I have one more invitation for a similar discussion this Sunday (26/4/09), I was quite dominant and a bit aggressive in those discussions, but it changed my whole perception towards voting.
Post the first discussion itself; I really felt that we should all vote only after a deep analysis on all the candidates and their manifestos. So, I downloaded the manifestos of all the candidates of my constituency and starting making a SWOT analysis of the same. Unfortunately, here in India, we do not get a chance to have the complete life bio-data of the candidates. Also, after this, I started asking a set of questions to my class-mates, colleagues, friends, etc. and unfortunately I found out that only around 10 to 20% of them could name all the candidates running from their constituency. I was disappointed that they call themselves YOUTH and even then they cast their votes without even knowing the name of the candidate, only for a particular party. If we do not get out of our mindsets for a particular party, then who are we to blame the system?
After that, I took up this challenge to ask as much youth as I can to go through the manifestos and only then cast their vote. It was then that I felt that youngsters like me who has already analyzed the manifestos of all the candidates can go and vote for the correct and deserving candidate. Also, I plan to take this ahead to a very massive level till the next Loksabha elections, make everyone aware about their responsibility and duty and how they can perform that precisely and accurately. If all the 60% of the voters who are below the age of 35 years can be made aware that they need to stop blind voting and use their vote for really making a difference, then it will yield fruitful results towards a stronger nation. And then perhaps we can hope for a bigger change in 2014.
“You are helping elect a bad candidate if you are good citizen, voting without analyzing” – Hardeep Pathak
It is by the same thought I have posted this on my blog, hoping many youngsters can still go through it and if this can motivate a few to act in the similar way.
After talking about the voting aspect, I would also love to comment on the political system of India, which I guess is the main encumbrance in India’s growth. I completely support the solution provided by Shree Lyngdoh towards changing the election system. What I criticize the most is that due to the system, even a person getting 20 or 30% of the total votes can get elected with a whooping 70-80% of the populace in his own constituency against him. This is not it, even he can become the Prime Minister of India, by just getting a meager 20-30% of votes in a stretch of 25-30 kms of his constituency. The system that is practiced in France is that there is firstly, this type of election held and out of that a voting is again held for the top 2 candidates. This will ensure that one of them gets atleast the support of more than 50% of the populace. And this will also ensure the end of addressing petite issues like caste or religion based voting and also ensure the end of hate-speeches like that of Mr. Varun Gandhi.
“One week is a very long time in Politics”- Winston Churchill.
We still have a complete week before election, so I just request to all of you who have taken the pain to read this (which means that you are a responsive citizen of India), start acting dutifully, make others aware about doing so and utilize your vote to elect the best person.
There is not much that can be done in this election but we can do a lot if many like-minded people like us (I include you also in this us, if you are still reading) can get together, talk about elections even in the time when there are no elections, reach out as much as we can and make a massive movement in the whole nation, not to vote without analyzing a candidate, and to cast the abstention vote if none of the candidates actually deserve. And if we really are able to make this movement massive till the next Loksabha election, we can actually demand the whole life bio-data of all the candidates, throughout the nation, and whosoever fails to do so, won’t get our votes.
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