Scene 1: Mumbai Airport. Just before the departure of my flight to Chennai, had a conversation with a friend from Janaagraha on their new initiative with Tata Tea - "Jaago Re! One Billion Votes". I am sure many of you would have seen and appreciated the TV ad. The initiative is very commendable for multiple reasons
- Its new approach with the strong message of "Agar aap soyenge to desh kaise jagega!"
- Making voter registration a much simpler process esp. by leveraging technology
- Endorsement by Election Commission
- Support of a corporate body - Tata Tea
- Execution by a dedicated Janaagraha team (with most of them below 30 years and alumni from IIT Madras who devoted their career to work for social causes)
- Last but not the least, the YOUTH factor - the initiative is to be driven by youth - Yes, true to what Vivekananda says "Give me 100 youth, I would change the fate of the country."
Scene 2: Chennai Airport. Landed at Midnight - I couldn't believe myself for having gotten an Auto from Airport to Nungambakkam for Rs.150, that too without any bargain. Yes, remember Chennai! The driver immediately proved his kindness and honesty by helping a poor airport worker on the way. I couldn't avoid but to ask him "Chennai eppadi irukku?" (How is chennai doing?). The conversations during the rest of the journey were interesting. (It's interesting to have conversations with auto drivers - they mirror the mentality of a common man and they know / see the mentality of many random people who travel in their autos). He began with how inflation is affecting the common man - He gave a statistics, which I never realized and found hard to believe - a tomato costs more than Rs.2! His point was that Government is driving the inflation and that the politicians just suck out people money (whenever he mentioned politicians, he promptly prefixed the Tamil abuse starting with "thev.." - I couldn't resist but to laugh at hearing the Senthamizh!). I decided to listen than giving gyan on inflation. He continued "I may not pay income tax, but i'm paying tax indirectly - from the match box to the petrol. Have these political Bas***** ever utilized the money properly? Look at the roads... For sucking and looting people's money, they and their families will never have a good death." Yeah, I asked the question, most of you have in mind - "You are complaining so much.. what did you do to change it? Did you vote in the last election?" With an ephemeral laugh, he said firmly "I'm 49 years old and have given up voting long time back.. I also encourage my family to not vote." Filled with rage quickly from tummy to eyes, I remarked "You dont vote.. but just keep complaining huh?" He quickly responded "Are there any good politicians or parties here? All are bas**** Whom will I vote for?" He made it clear that he doesn't support any party / politicians and that he believes in just 4 things in life (a) Being an MGR fan, though he never supported him as a politician (b) Lord Muruga devotee (c) Responsible family man (d) Honesty in work. I said "Hmm.. you wouldn't bother about what is happening outside your life. yeah, there are bad politicians.. but you won't make an effort to change things". He replied "Nobody can change these. I can't change the world. I will just do my work honestly and will help the person next to me in whatever small way I can". Auto reached door #9, **** Street, Chennai. Would have been nicer to hear more of his view points about life and politics, but just had to thank and bid adieu to him.
People might be perplexed by the title of the post! "Jaago Re" in hindi means "Wake up" - A call for action from others. "Oram Po" in Tamil implies "Leave way for me" - a typical phrase used by autowalas. In a broader sense, the 2 scenarios depict 2 different ways of living. W.r.t. voting, they imply different standpoints. In fact, it's not just the autowala - lot of people give up on voting saying "No good politicians", "things can't be changed." My good friend quoted this article - she said it makes much more sense to take an economist view and not vote in India today.
So, should we shout "Jaago Re" or "Oram Po"? You decide what you want to shout, but I would make my call loud and clear "Jaago Re"! I strongly believe - voting is not just a "civic duty", "self-interest", "make-a-difference", "feel good", "look good" factors, rather it's the "foundation" for many things. Like a foundation for the building, it incurs a significant cost at the beginning and may not have any immediate perceptible benefits, but it's absolutely necessary for a solid building. Voting may not be a cure-for-all solution. It may not be the ONE step, rather step one for solving many social issues.
So, what are you waiting for? If you haven't registered yourself, go ahead and register to vote at www.jaagore.com and no harm in spreading a good message to others! :)
1 comment:
Nice article man! You are definitely right about "Jagee raho". I am personally a fan of the belief that every problem has a solution and the solution lies in acting and not not-acting. There is no denial in that but there are a lot of open questions when one resorts to acting: is the action right or wrong? does it change things the way one wants to? etc...My opinion is that in our country we do not have a guidance system for the voters to answer such questions and the people don't have much time and expertise to frame such a system for themselves. Hence, people who have these resources, be it gov't or common people, should take the first step before they can 'pull' other common and poor people to act for themselves. In my opinion, such an action is already being taken: young people getting involved in politics and thinking unconventionally, politically. But the problem at hand is quite complex. For such problems, multiple, parallel 'solutions' or rather experiments are needed, I think. So, what could be another motivational solution? It just occurred to me that people who have made up their minds not to vote should still be compelled to vote but there has to be a 'dummy' on the votee list, so 'non-voters' can vote for this dummy. That way, when the results are published, everybody will know how many 'non-voters' were there. That could potentially make voters and also non-voters think. An interesting scenario here could be the dummy winning the election itself. In such a situation, there should be a 'default' government (like of the president/governor) that people SHOULD accept (this is the price that everybody will pay for not electing a gov't). This will trigger a re-visit of party policies and even experimentation with new parties and thus open up new vistas for innovation in party policy-making. They will have to get down to the demands of the common man, listen to them and give the people at least a satisfaction that their potential gov't has ears. So, basically, it should be a new game played by both the people and the potential govt's and not just a game played by parties like what is happening today.
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