Poll Position

As India braces itself for polls lets look at how rational we are at voting for the right people. As Indians, we have a lot of pride in flaunting our nationality. But, when it comes to voting, we are far behind. Ask a novice and he would reply that he does not beleive the voting system in the country. Ask another and he would say, give me a bottle of whisky and I would vote for anybody. In a distant country called America, people voted for change, here in india, we vote for no change. Basically, our society despises change.....and that is evident from the way religion is thrown in the ring like a football and kicked around by vagabonds. While on one hand we have fools who claim that they are saviors of the Indian culture, on the other hand we have bigger fools who claim they are saviors of country itself; all this when there are a countless attacks on the country by people within the country; sometimes in the name of religion and sometimes as terrorism.

We have heard the statement "this is a era of coalition governments". The political parties stoop to such an extent, that they would put Cleopatra to shame. Parties which were once considered enemies, get together like a script straight from Bollywood. Archrivals become best buddies. And in the midst of all this, money changes hands like a parallel banking system. We have had PMs who haven't even lasted a fortnight and we call ourselves the biggest democracy in the world. Democracy has become an object that the citizens of the country use to claim their rights but wouldnt make any attempts to follow their duties.

A popular TV commercial "Jaago Re" shows us how the youth needs to respond to elections and vote responsibly. However, I am sure it looks good on celluloid, but ground realities show us a different picture. Invarably, there will be people who say "I wanted to vote, but I did not have an election card", "All are equally corrupt, there is no point voting", "No time dude", "I have more productive work to do", "I dont beleive in Democracy", "I dont pay tax, u expect me to vote"..............and so on.

But at the end of the day......these are like excuses one would give in a school for missing classes! At the end of the day Democracy is of the people, by the people, for the people!!!