We get the government we deserve

Long protest marches for the 26/11 victims, diatribes on national television against politicians, awareness campaigns by celebrities and yet one of the lowest turnouts in city of Mumbai. I thought it would be just the opposite. But Mumbaikars have definitely sprung a surprise for everyone by churning a voter turnout of just 49%.

I have never seen any election with such a wide campaign, urging people to come out and vote and yet we failed. No one knows what went wrong. I see a lot of articles saying that people are so disillusioned by the government that they have lost faith in governance and politicians. All hogwash I would say. I feel the root cause of this is the great Mumbai spirit that we all are so proud of. This chalta hai attitude which makes us think that how does one vote of mine matter? Let anyone come nothing is going to change. I am happy with the way my life is, so let it go on. Another root cause is clubbing the election day with a long weekend. Now if our smart election commissioners thought that people would deliver their constitutional duties before going on their weekend holidays, then they were obviously proven wrong. Knowing how we Indians feel about voting and how motivated we are about casting our ballot rights, I don’t understand what made our EC to club the election holiday with a long weekend.

I don’t know who said it but he obviously hit the nail on head when he/she said that the society deserves the government they get. And this is so true in a democratic nation like ours. How many politicians are fighting the elections raising issues like economic, rural development etc? The political parties have released their manifestos. However good or bad they maybe, how many of us have actually gone through them? We can only curse the government but when it comes to doing something about it we so easily chicken out saying that all politicians are bad, whom do we vote for? This time there were some prominent personalities like Meera Sanyal standing for elections in Mumbai. Are they going a chance to prove themselves or given a chance to prove things if we chicken out this way?

I read that battle in Rajasthan is mainly about the castes there with great divide between Meena and Gujjars and with upper castes with BJP and lower castes and Muslim votes with Congress. Why blame the parties for proliferating caste divide when the society themselves is ready to lap it all up. We need real leaders who make these people understand that we have to rise above these caste and religion issues and vote for development rather than just becoming a guinea pig for the power hungry. Else we will keep getting the kind of politicians we deserve and as the present lot shows they aren’t that great.