Becoming Political 101.1 : Let’s get ready to vote.

The election schedule has been announced. There will now be intense jostling among prospective candidates for being nominated. Shrill canvassing will begin at the grassroots. What will we, the voter do differently? Politics they say is the last resort of the scoundrel, and you and I are no scoundrels so may justifiably feel that we have little to do in the cesspool of politics. Many think NOTA is probably the best option in a field where none of the candidates or parties seem to have any redeeming feature.

I too thought the same, but now I do not. Especially not this time. The least we can do is vote, but that too requires some effort and preparation as I have realised. I had an EPIC (voter) card made in 2014 and safely assumed my name would be on the electoral list. Imagine my surprise when my name did not return any data on the Goverify website! I was in a for a double whammy when I realised that my daughter’s name existed even though she was away from home for six years and had not voted in the last elections. Thankfully the online procedure for changing constituencies through the nvsp portal allowed us to include our earlier EPIC numbers in our Form 6 application. The physical verification took place promptly in Delhi. I am hopeful that my name will be on the rolls by the time elections take place in Delhi on the 12^th of May.

Why do I think that each of our votes count, especially this time? My vote, as that of each voter is one among 90 crore voters choosing one among 542 MPs. Our influence seems miniscule. But consider the following, in urban middle-class polling stations the polling figure are quite low because each of us thinks the same way. And as the urban middle class we have few political expectations unlike the poor who usually vote more enthusiastically. True we the middle class do not expect any windfall or shocks in a political climate which is broadly conducive to business and our employments and economic situations are secure. So why vote, especially this time? I am convinced that the voting this time is not for aspirations, but to preserve basic human decency. The decency which allows humans to coexist in a shared world. And if all of us who believe in decency vote, the numbers can add up.

Another way to get the numbers to add up is to avoid NOTA as well as the best, most principled candidate. The one who seems most likeable is the most unlikely to win. We cannot ‘waste’ our vote on good people who are likely losers. We need to vote for that candidate and party who seems the strongest opposition to the politics of polarisation and hate. We can wait till after the elections to see what combinations and permutations take place, but the choice now is to see that the ideology of division which is unconstitutional does not win the day.

The last time around many people voted for a ‘strong’ government which would wield a heavy broom to clear the Augean stables of Indian politics. We now see how that strong hand has promoted fissures across the country and the subcontinent and the country appears in a worse state. Visible, tangible corruption has been supplanted by a more pernicious kind of crony capitalism where absconders with a red alert on Interpol seem to have free passage internationally.

If all this worries you, you need to become political, you need to vote. We all need to vote more than ever before. We need to vote to defeat divisiveness and to celebrate the diversity of India and the idea of India which is contained in our Constitution. Check out when polling is scheduled for your area and start the preparations.