By Biranchi Narayan Acharya
During 2009 election, one of my friends, who was a political party worker, explained me his uncomfortable campaigning experience. Whenever he goes to a village to explain his party stand, achievement & future stand, all immediately suggested him to talk to their village head. He contacted the village head, where he found that the head immediately asked what would be partys bargain for each vote. That means the villagers authorized the head to negotiate the cost of each vote.
Clear indication was the highest auctioneers will get at least 80% vote of the village voter list. My friend tried to talk about the manifesto, but the head clearly said that none is interested to read so many promises. That was business time & he should straight away come to point!
My friend wasnt authorized to negotiate or bargain on that. Thus he simply informed his higher authorities about the fact & retired from campaign of that area. His party men definitely bargained with such villages as his leader won the election with great margin. My friend was in terrible shock on the demand of behavior of well to do villages. He knew that slums & very poor community sell their votes against cash. But he was utterly surprised how villagers as a whole can bargain their votes for cash!
But this is order of the day. We call politicians as corrupt, but we bargain with the contestants for our votes. Some do sell their votes for cash, some for kinds & others in the name of community, religion, caste & other biases. Fact is many of us are corrupt in voting or electing our representative yet we never tire in blaming politicians as corrupt.
Let us take other examples. We never hesitate to pay a clerk so that our file can move ahead of others. We never mind to purchase a cinema ticket on black to fulfill our aim to see a film first show-first day! When TTE says that he can give a berth of our choice, we never mind to pay him extra money. When we violate the traffic rule, we try to bribe the policeman less than prescribed fine. Every time we want to purchase favors & only scream of foul play when we fail to auction an action in our favor!
Lets take it little further. In recent Parliamentary visual of pepper spray & brandishing knifes was harshly criticized by us. But we conveniently forgot that we are champion of hooliganism! Be there an unfortunate accident or some other incident, we exhibit our super capability of vandalism. We immediately set the vehicles on fire, broke the nearby shops, beat some helpless guys (being a part of mob) & either we loot public property or help others to do such looting!
A bit further, if we have daughters, we raise our voice against dowry. In case our sons marriage, we advocate for tradition. Point is very simple, we bear dual character. As long as we dont suffer, we dont mind ways & means that may be unethical, unconstitutional & inhuman. The moment we see our loss, we start screaming on fundamental right, constitutional entitlement & humanistic liberty!
When Election commission declares voting schedule, we plan our vacation. Because the voting day is a holiday & should be enjoyed as entertainment day! How can we stand in a queue to vote dirty people? This is against our status & ideology. Thus we remain distanced to dirty work like voting, politics & politicians! But yes as fundamental right we use our freedom to express criticism towards politicians, elected representatives & most importantly the system.
We are never interested to realize that what is fundamental right is in fact a fundamental duty & constitutional obligation. Democracy not only gives us right but demand obligations as duty! The constitution makes us master of the democracy. At the same time it vests responsibility on the master to make this democracy function properly. We enjoy the rights & freedoms. But still we never made ourselves accountable to constitution rather we made ourselves as non-participating hard core critic of the same system that makes us masters.
Have we thought little differently? If our representatives are corrupt, then some where we too are corrupt. If the system is faulty, some where our intention or deeds are also faulty. If our politicians are irresponsible & not dedicated to the nation, somewhere we too are irresponsible to the democracy & not dedicated to the Constitution!
Point is simple. To be in a democracy we need to deserve to be in a democracy. You cant expect everything to be alright & systematic without your participation. A monarchy can run systematically if the king is right. But a democracy cant run righteously if its masters are irresponsible, opportunists & unaccountable. A master with dual character always became liability to his kingdom! Have we ever thought that? No, because we are here just to enjoy our rights & not to fulfill our duties.
There is a famous Chinese proverb that goat like people get wolf like rulers. We have been given a democracy because of many sacrifices. Have we ever realized our role in this democracy with respect to those martyrs? No, we always use the name of those martyrs to blame the system, the polity & the politics just ignoring our opportunist escapism from our accountability.
India despite being a largest democracy & ancient civilization, we are one of the corrupt, anarchic & irresponsible nation. Do we ever get ourselves accountable for this embarrassment? If not, then we must not deserve to be in a democracy. If yes, then lets start our citizen responsibility, duty & obligation as early as possible!
Feel free to give your opinions in the comments section below!