Democracy??

We Indians pride ourselves with the fact that we are the biggest democracy in the world. Democracy by simple definition is the “People’s rule”, but is it really true?? This blog might just compel you to ask the same question I asked myself.

Karnataka recently went to the polls to elect a new state government. A colleague of mine had to attend campaign duties since one of his close relatives was contesting the elections from a district in North Karnataka. Upfront the campaign duty surely sounded like fun – organizing and attending rallies, writing speeches, going from home to home to ask for votes, coming up with unique strategies to beat the other party….and much more. But on his return, when he was confronted with the question “How was the election campaign?” his answer simply was “Horrible and Pathetic”. Here is the experience that he shared with us, explaining why he felt this trip of his was so unmemorable:

1. During their door to door knocking asking people to go vote, the most common reply he got was – “How much money can you give us?”
2. Another reply he usually got was – “Donate money to our village temple”
3. Once during the meet, some party workers panicked when they got the news that the opposition party had donated Rs. 25,000 to the village and thrown a feast to the villagers comprising of Chicken Biryani. The workers demanded that they wanted to donate more money and throw a bigger feast to attract the votes towards their candidate.
4. Most of the people expected my colleague to dish out more and more money with the attitude that ‘Its earned from software money, so its easy earnings – no problem even if it goes waste’

There were many more, but all of the above points clearly states one thing. The guy with the money, calls the shorts in India. Poor uneducated people in the villages are more concerned with the state of the temple rather than their home or school or college. I do not oppose religion, but I rather give a much higher priority to education. Unfortunately no one is ready to take the time out to explain this to the poor people.

So where is India really headed. The political system and politicians of India are abused by literally each and every one of us, but none dare to take a single step to improve it!!! Fortunately there is some hope at the horizon – India is now seeing the emergence of a young, educated breed of politicians like Rahul Gandhi, Omar Abdullah, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora and many others. I firmly believe that they too will have to dive into the mud pond to get into power, but I dearly hope that they do so to clean it up and not get dirty themselves. Only time will tell what really will happen. We will wait for that day to come and hope that all of us will do our best to ensure that that happens in our lifetime atleast.

I would like to sign off this blog with the following thought – “Democracy – the rule of people or the rule of money?”