It is the 14th of May and the pundits are out! The Election Commission only allows the media to come out with their exit polls after the elections are over (and by that, they mean all the phases). So now its over to the experts, the verdict is for them to call until the truth (a.k.a mess) is for all to see on the 16th.
Babies might have started talking in the month since I voted. My estimate (no opinion polls or surveys here) is that atleast half a million people who voted this time wouldn't make it to the date of the final result (people can wither and die in a month, especially in this Indian summer). For a whole month all were equal in this country. At the table was the control over our lives for half a decade.
As I said, I voted. I voted for a party which made the right noises, refusing to believe that the point of voting is predicting the winner. My expert friends on the TV now tell me that my vote will be a "Wasted Vote", that my candidate will go home. Moreover they say mine was a "Spoiler Vote", meaning all I did was make it difficult for my second choice candidate to win: I spoiled his chances and wasted my vote.
Clear conscience is difficult to find in election season. Back until November I followed the US elections, all the websites and blogs, TV too. I had an opinion, but that wasn't my place. Now this summer I finally had a chance to excercise my opinion and choose. So I prepared well, watched all the 13 telugu news channels, a few of the national networks and the papers too. The political satires were out, the cartoons and songs, all the political TV spots. The absurd mixed in with the pertinent. After all of that, I voted along with the 710 million others (well atleast 55% of them anyway).
And now I am told my voice was not in unison with my neighbours. That I am the problem in a democracy: people who don't take a hint. I am like the 97,421 citizens of Florida back in 2000 who, in all good faith and clear conscience voted for Ralph Nader only to be told that they inadvertently brought in the greater of the evils to power by 537 votes. I always wondered what these people did in their next shot in '04, did they buy the spoiler argument or did they stand by their dented convictions again.
In the media, for months we had all these campaigns basically saying "Vote!". They told us that's what is wrong with the country - me not voting or voting without sense. Well I voted every opportunity I got, but never with satisfaction. I even asked the polling officer this time if I could cast a blank vote, he asked me if that's why I came all the way for. I fell in line, I voted. Any case, it turns out that that legislation is not in place in India.
The word "Rajnithi" is both apt and profound. I do not share in the disgust that some might hold towards politics. I realize that the smarter people in any society would obviously choose to rule over the rest and most often the smartest would actually make it. I just hate that I am made to play the fool at the end of it all.
Babies might have started talking in the month since I voted. My estimate (no opinion polls or surveys here) is that atleast half a million people who voted this time wouldn't make it to the date of the final result (people can wither and die in a month, especially in this Indian summer). For a whole month all were equal in this country. At the table was the control over our lives for half a decade.
As I said, I voted. I voted for a party which made the right noises, refusing to believe that the point of voting is predicting the winner. My expert friends on the TV now tell me that my vote will be a "Wasted Vote", that my candidate will go home. Moreover they say mine was a "Spoiler Vote", meaning all I did was make it difficult for my second choice candidate to win: I spoiled his chances and wasted my vote.
Clear conscience is difficult to find in election season. Back until November I followed the US elections, all the websites and blogs, TV too. I had an opinion, but that wasn't my place. Now this summer I finally had a chance to excercise my opinion and choose. So I prepared well, watched all the 13 telugu news channels, a few of the national networks and the papers too. The political satires were out, the cartoons and songs, all the political TV spots. The absurd mixed in with the pertinent. After all of that, I voted along with the 710 million others (well atleast 55% of them anyway).
And now I am told my voice was not in unison with my neighbours. That I am the problem in a democracy: people who don't take a hint. I am like the 97,421 citizens of Florida back in 2000 who, in all good faith and clear conscience voted for Ralph Nader only to be told that they inadvertently brought in the greater of the evils to power by 537 votes. I always wondered what these people did in their next shot in '04, did they buy the spoiler argument or did they stand by their dented convictions again.
In the media, for months we had all these campaigns basically saying "Vote!". They told us that's what is wrong with the country - me not voting or voting without sense. Well I voted every opportunity I got, but never with satisfaction. I even asked the polling officer this time if I could cast a blank vote, he asked me if that's why I came all the way for. I fell in line, I voted. Any case, it turns out that that legislation is not in place in India.
The word "Rajnithi" is both apt and profound. I do not share in the disgust that some might hold towards politics. I realize that the smarter people in any society would obviously choose to rule over the rest and most often the smartest would actually make it. I just hate that I am made to play the fool at the end of it all.
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