Not that elections were not important earlier or that it was not the fulcrum of the Indian democratic system, but its recent transformation over the last one or two decades has made us believe that it has turned out to be the nation’s curse. There is also no denying the fact that from the current vantage point there is no other choice, no chance for change and no one is even thinking about it, much less the people who have been propped by the same weird elections.
Indian human existence seems to be manipulated for the elections. It is being tailormade for the elections. The true democratic functional framework which we should have been proud of, is being puppeteered by the elections. The added enigma, irony and paradox the country is forced to grapple with in the conduct of fairly weird elections, legally mandated and technically declared democratic. For the seasoned, democratic and undemocratic are not two binaries, but it is made out to be that way, because it suits all the stakeholders.
Suffice to say that the ordinary citizen or call him or her the voter is not a stakeholder from a de facto point of view. From the dejure point of view they are the sovereign. Today we have only electioneering and nothing else in this country; in different forms, formats, templates, direct, indirect, camouflaged, strategised and what not. While West Asia was facing near existential crisis and Manipur was on the precipice; a rocked attack to boot, the powers that be had no time as nothing else but electioneering counts.
All public domain, governance, diplomacy, planning, execution and supervision time has been sacrificed at the altar of elections, without realising that we are left with nothing of democratic governance, welfare, social security et al. Everyone has become an expert on vitiated elections from a corporator to bureaucracy to media to the highest in the political executive. The electronic media and other debates revolve around parties and leaders and their election strategies; from abuses to guarantees to manipulating voters and voter lists. All suspect affidavits are the treasure trove of the ECI, lacking both the mandate and the will to probe. Have the much touted election observers also not been responsible in bringing electioneering to this low? Don’t miss out on the ECI.
SKEWED ELECTIONEERING AND ELECTIONS ARE HANGING LIKE A DAMOCLES’ SWORD OVER TRUE INDIAN DEMOCRACY!