Casually Googled / Binged: “The number of elections, on an average, does a voter needed to vote in India per year”. This enquiry did not elicit any suitable reply. I do not know which part or the Article of the Constitution of India talks of elections every 5 years. Nor am I interested to know.
The Constitution of India has omitted to ask if the people are interested to vote. Voting does not mean leaving all the personal /business work, spend the entire day to vote, to elect a representative! Do people have that much time? Consider the following:
- The Parliamentary elections are held in a phased manner for 3 to 6 weeks. People are expected to give their precious time to vote!
- We have elections to elect a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA). Generally, every state has its elections separate – at different time / month/ year. There are 28 states and 8 Union Territories in India. Every year at least 2 or more states go for elections. The Constitution expects the people to vote!
- We have also elections for Rajya Sabha / the Upper House. Every two years 1/3 members retire. Rajya Sabha has 245 members. 1/3 of 245 is 82 members retire every two years. The people have to keep casting votes to elect members for the Upper House. Looking at this, one wonders if the people of India have any other work than voting!
- There are around 6 to 10 states that have a Legislative Council. Member of Legislative Council (MLC). It is similar to Rajya Sabha. There are elections, and for the people of these states there is an added responsibility- vote extra!
- Then the by-elections – vote further extra!
- Another prominent election is the Municipal Elections. Elections for a corporator and a Ward Member. Democracy at work or voting hell for citizens?
- Th grassroot Gram Panchayat Elections. Every villager to vote to elect a sarpanch and his deputy.
- Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) – the voters to vote to elect the MPTC members.
- Similarly, there is an additional duty of voting to elect members for the Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency.
- Voting in the Co-op Banks. Voting in schools and colleges. Voting to elect the officials for sports committees.
- We also vote to elect the office bearers of residential society.
Please bear in mind that the above is only a sample. There are more elections where the voters are forced to vote. Reading the above introductory list in itself is burdensome! Vote for this. Vote for that. Voting is your duty. You are exercising your constitutional right. You are participating in the democratic process. Your vote counts. Vote and keep Voting! Voila! the vote shit.
Did Babasaheb Ambedkar think, while drafting the constitution, that the people of India have no other work but to vote? The drafting committee of the constitution must have thought that the people are born to vote! They are branded ‘Desh Drohi’ if the vote is not casted! The government and the constitution wrongly assume that a citizen’s work is to vote! He expected to elect any clown. If clowns were to become the head of a state, then there will not be a government, but a circus. Thus, the concept of democracy and its process become rotten. Where does this end?
What the constitution did not think was an individual citizen will certainly have more important works than to vote. For him voting is not important; but attending to his works are. The importance of the work is to be decided by the voter, not the Constitution.
Yet another aspect which the Constitution missed out to understand: Does a citizen want to vote? Does he like to vote? Does he feel like voting? When a citizen does not like to vote, let it be so. Carrying/transporting them to vote is stupidity.
A non-voter is a ‘Desh Drohi’ / not a ‘Desh Premi’. This interpretation of a voter is sad and unintelligent.
The media (both print & electronic) is election charged perennially. They became bottomless stinking pits. I am not a media person. As a citizen I have more important works to attend than to waste time voting.
Are elections so important that the entire government and private machinery is put on that work? Literally all other businesses come to a standstill.
Is electing a representative so inalienable that the voting day is declared a holiday? And are they so damn important that the entire police, para-military, and military are deployed for this work? During the days of election, the police do not do policing. Finally, all the money spent – can it not be called as unnecessary expenditure? Why should the citizens pay to elect few to govern us?
Nothing will change. This piece is a thought process. 5000 years from now, we will be read in history as to how we wasted time in the sacred duty of voting, with the same astonishment and awe we read of the ancient Egypt today.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
