Travelogue

I have written a travelogue of my trip to Madurai - Rameshwaram - Dhanushkodi - Kanyakumari along with my family and friends. If you are interested please follow the link

Click Here

Hope you enjoy it!

Are we killing democracy?

It has been 60 years since we got our independence. The political system of our country (Democracy) has bestowed its citizens with the right to form their government. Recently on May 10th 2008, polling went on in 89 constituencies across 11 southern districts of Karnataka in the first phase of the assembly elections. 55 percent of 17.3 million eligible voters voted and Bangalore recorded the lowest with just 40 percent turn out.

I have heard many answers given by people when you ask why you didn’t vote. “I wanted to teach them a lesson!”, “If I vote or not vote how does it matter?”, “I do not have my name in the voter’s list”, “I do not have id proof to do the voting”, “All the candidates are corrupt and are power mongers who give least importance to development, so why should I vote them?” and many more. Since 60 years, many governments have been formed and in the future, continue to get formed. But what has been the difference! Most of the cabinet ministers in the formed government do not have a healthy history or they do not have the vision to lead India. Who is responsible for this?

The unethical act of a party which failed to keep up to its promise of transferring power, brought the necessity of elections in Karnataka. The people of Karnataka were given the responsibility to elect a stable government which would successfully run for its complete term (5 years) concentrating more on development rather than political instability. Did we execute our responsibility? The voting statistics says it all. A couple of days back I was travelling in a bus. There was a conversation between 2 people, one who had casted his vote and the other who did not. The person who had voted made a strong statement “People who did not vote are like people who are dead!” It was indeed correct. We are living in our country, we want good facilities, and we have been given the responsibility to elect a government which would give us what we want, and at the end of the day it is the same we who will blame the government for not doing any work. Is it ethical on our part to put any such blame on the government when we have not voted?

The election commission had given the opportunity to add your name to the voter’s list. They had published the information in papers and news channels. Did we take it seriously to register our names in the voters list? No we were least bothered about it. Probably we even expected the election commission to come to our door steps begging to add our names. I think if there was a rule in the constitution saying that you would be given remuneration for the month only if you show the proof that you have voted then probably we would have taken that extra pain of registering our names and execute our right of voting!

I agree with many people saying “All the candidates are corrupt and are power mongers who give least importance to development, so why should we vote them?” but is that a solution to prevent corrupt candidates from being elected. We have the right to elect and not to elect a person. If you do not want to vote then register your voting right, but say that you are not interested in voting anyone. This would probably give you chance to prevent the corrupt candidate from being elected.

Are we trying to forget our responsibilities as citizens? Are we taking voting, elections and hence democracy lightly? Do we need stringent rules to wake us up and remind us of our duties?

We should feel proud that we are born in India, the land of culture and diversity. As Indians it is our responsibility and duty to work towards country’s progress. Don’t you think your vote is precious? If you had never felt that India is your home and electing its leader is your responsibility, then you must rethink about calling yourself an Indian. Let us all vote and make democracy live longer.