A starry-eyed Election!
By- Pamarty Venkataramana
Seasons come;seasons go.Elections cone;elections go.People stay on – and yes,lives come and lives go away into the world of unknown,undefined frontiers.
But what is the purpose of any general election ? Is it to retain the good and bid farewell to the not so good? Is it to usher in a new era or,better still,to bury the past? Is it to afford an opportunity to another set of wannabes or is it only meant to return the also-rans?
Are periodical polls meant to improve the lot of the general public or shower huge public wealth at a seasonal festival of officialese?
Does law make the society or a society makes its laws? Is the Constitution thrust by departing invaders many decades ago the forever lighthouse to let ships of fortune-hunters into treasure House of Parliament or dies the nation possess the ability to outmanoeuvre turbulence of stormy botched-up systems of our society?
If once upon a time flags and festoons marked the election-campaigning movement,today it seems to have been overtaken by noisy television-studios and anonymous social-media platforms with ghost-like handles and name-holders calling the shots at sloganeering,name-calling as well as manifesto-derailment.
The loud speakers and feisty speeches at junctions and around the market streets have vanished just like crackers are not to burst on Diwali days nor coloured water splashed on Holi festival. The beat-constabulary no longer indulges in cheering the celebrating crowds of a nation with rich cultural heritage but walk the by-lanes scaring away revellers with aid of their age-old lathi and uttering the name of the holy court directive.
Yes. We are into another election-year Holi. The leaders don’t approach the voters with their jholis or the cotton made white cap. In all the best of limousines and gadgetry driven campaign power,these chosen few candidates along with a motley bunch of sidekicks goad you to vote for their beloved leaders so that the invisible foreign hand residing amidst society does not wield wand of sorcery to destabilise the economy of a one hundred and fifty billion souls.
They do not remind you of a failed,antiquated criminal justice system where monied can twist long arm of law or a semi-literate,uncouth petty clerk holed up in a dingy room can make life miserable and terminate sanity with power of his vitriolic mind and signature of his busy bosses. They do not let you focus on nil to low ethical quotient observed in all essential fields of service of society ( such as lawyers, doctors, teachers, shopkeepers and even auto rickshaw drivers or mechanics ) in a widely acknowledged kaliyuga syndrome . Or, a need to re engineer education and healthcare services in both urban and the rural areas.
They distract the mind of the voter from a marketing whirlwind that has virtually ‘sold’ most sacred and secret forces of a society – be it the ones defending borders or the ones working on space-technology projects.
Chest-thumping and brow-beating have become as natural as crying hoarse about anything and everything aimed at developing the lot of the individual voter.
Who is responsible for this fallacious and most vicious state of affairs ?
Is it the voter class who relish in a secret self-patting exercise of having befooled the ones befooling them in guise of a poll manifesto?
Is it the class of scapegoats who riddled with a good conscience cannot join the rank and file of the ineligible to somehow climb the ladder of power – and then implement the good thoughts meant to decisively alter the happiness-quotient of fellow-citizens?
Or,is it the law of Nature to let the better of the generation rot so that only rotten ones remain to be destroyed by an act of natural degenerative process – to reestablish a new world order?
Whatever be the proportion of truth underlying these hypotheses,one cannot but see the heralding of spring drag in a new spring in the steps of both canvassers as well the voter class – in the sublime hope of letting the continuity of ‘good’ and end of ‘bad’ policies. After all,all opposition and ruling fronts are citizens of the same democratic society.
Rather than trying to oust and eject one another,let there be a sense of collective responsibility imbibed in psyche of one and all who leave aside all important chores to dabble in the heat and dust of a midsummer day’s election festival.
However,on this starry night as one looks up at the twinkling , beautiful sky above and the musical lashing of waves of the sea besides this little speck of a being,one cannot but help recognise the farce that all the buffoonery and villainy of elections,leaders is !
Who in reality owns this portion of the infinite Universe and who is actually running our lives?
Ask yourself my dear countrymen before you let the chords of your heart or mind tugged at and as you press the button an electronic voting machine soon enough..!
Jai Hind!!
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