Elections 2009 – Urban India Voter Turnout – Appalling!

I) Quoting from an article in Mail Today -

“Sample this: Mumbai, the commercial capital of the country and the city that witnessed massive public mobilisation after the 26/11 terror attacks, managed a figure of only 43 per cent in the phase held on April 30 (the lowest since 1977); Bangalore, the seat of the country’s IT revolution, notched up a figure of 46 per cent on April 23; Lucknow, the capital of the politically most important state of the Hindi heartland, Uttar Pradesh, disappointed with a pathetic 34.5 per cent turnout; Kanpur, an industrial centre and the second largest city of UP, managed 39 per cent; Bhopal, a politically important state capital, saw 45.1 per cent polling; and Indore, Hyderabad and Gandhinagar (L.K. Advani’s constituency) crossed the 50 per cent mark, but only just, with 50.89 per cent, 52.46 per cent and 50.82 per cent, respectively.”

 Fantastic, ain’t it? I mean, what better response could we give to the leaders of our country than the verdict that

 -   Urban India just doesn’t care who gets elected.

 -   Urban India is ‘resilient’ to false/no promises at all from any political party

 -   By logical extension, ‘Spirit of (insert name of Indian City)’ is a given, irrespective of any political party in power, considering the number of terrorist threats to our country every day.

 -   Urban India will not make the issue of terrorism a part of any political party’s manifesto. Why should I? I mean, it’s a national issue, no? It is military/police/politicians’ automatic responsibility, no?

 -   Urban India (probably) didn’t want to brave the summer heat to vote. Obviously, Health is Wealth, no?

 -   Urban India doesn’t want to educate its children (by means of their actions) that every vote counts. In fact, children might grow up to understand that all this voting is a big circus/tamasha. Good for them, they realized it much earlier than all of us.

  -  Urban India is pseudo-elitist; it doesn’t like being preached by stupid campaigns like ‘Jaago Re’. I mean, who are these ‘Jaago Re’ morons to tell US to vote? We are bloody well intelligent.

  -   Urban India probably doesn’t believe that any change would come by irrespective of the political party. Wonder, if they knew who were the candidates contesting the elections? Wonder if they even bothered to enquire if there was any good independent candidate who didn’t affiliate himself/herself with the two main political parties?

Nope, who has the time I say, dammit? Who the hell has time to vote? Who has the patience to research candidates in the constituency? We care two hoots about who gets elected. But, BUT of course, we will complain.

   1)  We will complain if infrastructure is bad; roads, electricity – you name it.

   2)  We will complain if terrorists attack our nation and kill 150 people every 3 months. We are a ‘effing’ spirited city,     no?

   3)  We will complain that all politicians are corrupt. Armchair experts, who don’t even have 1 hr of their time, once in 5 yrs, to vote.

   4)   We will complain against reservations and for merit. Oh yes, by the way, only from the sidelines, on blogs and twitter. Yes, even during coffee conversations in Coffee Day/Barista.

Yes, we will not vote. We are like that only. ‘Jaago Re’ or ‘Sleepo Re’ – it wouldn’t have made a effing difference.

II) Gaurav of Vote Report India, talking of online engagement and other initiatives like Jaago Re says ‘These initiatives may not have resulted in a significant voter turnout but they have laid the foundation for engaging India’s urban middle class in serious civic issues.‘

Gaurav, frankly, c’monn. I understand optimism, but ‘engaging urban middle class’? You might as well search for the long lost California gold mines – you might actually find one. People tune out the moment they are given any responsibility (like the right/responsibility to vote) outside their family. 60 yrs of disillusionment with reservations, casteism makes ‘engaging urban middle class’ that much harder. The rich have an interest in politics to save their money (tax sops, favored political parties, whatever). The poor have an interest because of agricultural sops. Middle class? What have the politicians got? Neither proper education nor proper infrastructure nor proper security – the three most important things for the middle class to be engaged in politik. ‘Engaging middle class’ will not happen because politicians (being the smart people they are) know that this ‘middle class’ wouldn’t come out to vote in large numbers – thereby not a large vote bank. Why would they even waste an iota of a paise to ‘engage middle class’?

No way. Or maybe I am saying all these doomsday utterances because of terrible disillusionment at the extremely poor poll numbers. This was Urban India’s chance and they blew it. Circa 2014, technology might have changed dramatically, but would people’s attitude change? The answer is anybody’s guess.

But then, you got to give it to Urban India. (Hearty applause please)! With hardly any difference in the percentages of voter turnouts between 2004 and 2008 inspite of all the brilliant campaigns like Jaago Re – Urban India has well and truly shown the middle finger to all political parties, nay to the tireless Jaago Re and other campaign workers. Thank you Urban India, you have done us proud.

Quite.

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