Your democracy and theirs

 

Our grandparents were the perfect creatures of democracy. Being Bangla refugees from the partition, they knew (or assumed) that the only political voice they had as citizens of a new India was to exercise their franchise by casting their rightful vote.

So every election, a ritualistic democratic procedure followed. They observed the candidates concerned on television, read about various party campaigns on newspapers, kept themselves informed on relevant policies, and held rounds of discussions, over tea or lunch-drying-over-fingers, with family members. Party workers, of varied political parties, from the locality would visit and chat about the party’s policies and promises over a period of time—most of these people knew each other due to the personal nature of communities within large cities till even a few years back.

Crucial to the whole process was secret ballot. Grandpa never knew who grandma pressed the button for. Each individual in the family who bothered to be part of the democratic process of voting maintained its sanctity even within a private space. When the grandchildren took them to vote, they could not peek into the booth to see the cast vote—not by rule but by choice. Our grandma eventually broke her leg after falling off the cycle rickshaw she took to cast her vote at an age old enough to never be able to vote again, or walk. The democratic state she had voted for, however, made it possible for people like her to access healthcare at a public or private institute.

But this dedication to exercise a democratic right had little bearing on making the electioneering process, as a whole, more democratic in India. Take, for instance, the domestic workers at our grandparents’. It was compulsory for them to cast a vote, but not necessarily by choice. The leader they finally elected, a choice they’re theoretically given, depended much on the decision of a single community leader. In the homegrown neighbourhoods (“slums”) of Kolkata or the poor villages of Bengal, people had to vote for someone a legitimate community leader, or a mafia boss, had pre-chosen for them. Lack of education, slim understanding of rights and poverty left them with no option. If they had to understand manifestos, they had to physically attend rallies. At times, they were forced to attend such rallies and be able to sift through propaganda for promise.  

The story is not too different for those in the territorial peripheries of India. Newspapers here have been able to provide a democratic space for assessing an electoral response to issues, but things continue to remain largely in the dark for people in the peripheries.

While countless methods have been introduced to clean up the electoral process in India, democracy still seems to work better for the privileged, who live without question and by rule. For the poor and peripheral, other political processes like armed and unarmed protests, among other things, have come to the rescue.