Usually, elections at all levels are disposed of with robotic nonchalance by our family. We do discharge our democratic duties diligently and get our fingers inked. Then plonk ourselves in front of the TV to find out which set of corrupt and inept politicians would mismanage our affairs through gross non-governance for the next five years. But do we ever pick our candidate after extensive analysis? Nah. Our decision to vote for a candidate is based on the cumulative effect of all the inputs we have consciously and unconsciously imbibed since the last election. And more often than not, the choice has more to do with the party which has contrived to create the illusion that it is doing better in some spheres; seldom predicated on the candidate - most probably because we have never had a candidate of that stature. Yes, there are exceptional cases in which a candidate gets the vote regardless of the party, but those are isolated instances. During the last state assembly election, my wife and I thoughtlessly set a trap for ourselves and walked into it, eyes wide open! During every election, we do hear some clarion calls urging us to select the `ideal' or `clean' candidate and this time we decided to experiment with this path, while making our choice. So, unlike previous elections, we sat down and did some research about the candidates to find out who would merit our votes best.
I gasped when my wife let out a scream of desperation within the first minute of our starting the scrutiny of the candidates. She was justifiably alarmed that there were 17 of them - no less - vying for our votes in the constituency. We were not so prejudiced that even before a cursory examination we doubted the absolutely altruistic intentions of this large a number of people to serve the electorate, but this just increased our workload manifold. Our desire for extensive research on all candidates plummeted drastically with this discovery. We were pessimistic to begin with, about both the need for and outcome of the exercise and now this clearly queered the pitch further. However, we decided to plough on valiantly and in the next 24 hours, we had gleaned the following about the candidates:
(1) Of the 17, four were genuinely thick-skinned political honchos of various parties and it showed glaringly, almost like a halo. All the four had multiple criminal cases against them, ranging from 14 for the `revered leader' from a national party to a rather modest 5 for the hopeful from the state-level party. Each one had some `serious' cases according to the website but then we derived no further edification regarding the types of crimes. Specifically we could not decipher whether any heinous crimes like rape, murder etc were involved and this really hampered our judgement. The declared net-worth of each one in this group had at least 10 zeroes behind a number and had skyrocketed in comparison with the disclosures five years back, further lending credence to the impression that they were all seasoned players, who specialized in accumulating wealth without much investment (a colleague used to call this `dipping your personal pen into the public ink pot') - a knack (not skill, mind you) only hardcore politicians employ unabashedly and get away with it.
(2) Four other candidates clearly had aspirational qualifications - they were activists of smaller parties - which could not be ignored. They had only civil cases filed against them and obviously were seeking a platform to give their budding careers the decisive push and graduate to major criminal shenanigans, once they get our mandate. You see, unadulterated brazenness and money-driven, blind loyalty of the factotums, so essential for committing serious crimes, spring from the power that is bestowed on elected positions. Without that, this group woefully lacked the distinguishing aura that the previous group was blessed with. But the redeeming feature was that they were all contractors and/or realtors - the right kind of essential attributes that marked them as the success stories in the not-too-distant-future and one could see why they were taking themselves seriously.
(3) The remaining nine, the perceptive judges in us could see even without further investigation, would inevitably be also-rans. Simply because they had no real stature (lamentably not even civil cases against them!) to command respect nor testimonials for brute power to instill fear in the constituents. All they could boast of was some random academic qualification, which would never be put to use for common good (some were engineers and others post graduates, but what good is that, even conceding that their degrees were not bought?). And a self-professed and demonstrated keenness to improve the lives of common men and women around them. Evidently they were not moneybags, which fact unfailingly served to dismantle them from the race forthwith as far as the average voter is concerned. That was the painful clincher.
We dealt with the last group first for very obvious reasons - we wanted to get the feel that we were making some progress!! We realised that probably a few of these would make good elected representatives but chances of them ever getting there were zilch. Out of 400,000 voters, some 10,000 educated people, with misplaced righteousness, might collectively opt for all these good men and women. That obviously is not going to bring the bacon home for these. The million dollar question was whether we wanted to be part of this small, thinking group, just for the satisfaction of having voted with our conscience for the better candidate. The idea of opting for someone who would be a certain loser was not appetizing and definitely depressing. What remained was the difficult choice between (a) those with criminal cases, who have done it all and were awaiting convictions and (b) those who were bursting at their seams to attain that higher glory and would do their damnedest to join the elite group, if only we gave them that window of opportunity, appreciating their eagerness and enthusiasm!
Very distressed by the prognosis thus far, we decided to digress a bit and looked at the photos of all the aspiring leaders in this pool, just to take our minds away from the bewildering task on hand. That was a serendipitous masterstroke and gave us a breakthrough inkling in terms of some criteria for a decision. We could choose one with ostensible belligerence in visage and intimidating bulk in physique, so that `our voice' would be heard in the assembly whenever our worthy representative moves like a bull into the well of the house and disrupts the proceedings. Or we could elect someone seemingly older and more mature, who would quietly sit there without uttering one word (not because he is a profound philosopher but because he cannot speak in public to save his life), shiftily watching `something interesting' on his mobile phone! So, could this be the ultimate deciding factor in helping us cast our votes?
Come to think of it, after all the hoopla, once elected, what are the Honorary Members going to do when they condescend to take a break from disrupting the House to actually legislate?? They would quickly and painlessly pass those bills which perpetuate all the ills of our electoral system - they would legalize electing a person jailed for murder and the like; they would legitimize the continuation in power of those convicts who have appealed against guilty verdicts and are roaming around freely, while manipulating the judicial system to prevent their cases from ever coming up for hearing. If they still had some time, they would bestow additional perks and compensation on themselves and as a concession to the people, would also approve a couple of populist bills when they are close to the next election. And the few brilliant and seemingly earnest and sincere men and women we manage to elect, with the expectation that they would help reform the political class, are pathetic, silent spectators of all these activities. Legal luminaries, economists, wealthy businessmen, scientists and intelligentsia - all of them prove helpless in arresting the avalanche of the ordinary! Aren't they as guilty of betraying our trust as the real offenders??
We shrewdly decided to go with the national party's candidate with the least number of criminal cases against him! What is the big idea of promoting a lesser candidate to a higher level of criminality? Or voting for a candidate who would not win, come what may? Clean candidates have to wait a long while, probably!!
I gasped when my wife let out a scream of desperation within the first minute of our starting the scrutiny of the candidates. She was justifiably alarmed that there were 17 of them - no less - vying for our votes in the constituency. We were not so prejudiced that even before a cursory examination we doubted the absolutely altruistic intentions of this large a number of people to serve the electorate, but this just increased our workload manifold. Our desire for extensive research on all candidates plummeted drastically with this discovery. We were pessimistic to begin with, about both the need for and outcome of the exercise and now this clearly queered the pitch further. However, we decided to plough on valiantly and in the next 24 hours, we had gleaned the following about the candidates:
(1) Of the 17, four were genuinely thick-skinned political honchos of various parties and it showed glaringly, almost like a halo. All the four had multiple criminal cases against them, ranging from 14 for the `revered leader' from a national party to a rather modest 5 for the hopeful from the state-level party. Each one had some `serious' cases according to the website but then we derived no further edification regarding the types of crimes. Specifically we could not decipher whether any heinous crimes like rape, murder etc were involved and this really hampered our judgement. The declared net-worth of each one in this group had at least 10 zeroes behind a number and had skyrocketed in comparison with the disclosures five years back, further lending credence to the impression that they were all seasoned players, who specialized in accumulating wealth without much investment (a colleague used to call this `dipping your personal pen into the public ink pot') - a knack (not skill, mind you) only hardcore politicians employ unabashedly and get away with it.
(2) Four other candidates clearly had aspirational qualifications - they were activists of smaller parties - which could not be ignored. They had only civil cases filed against them and obviously were seeking a platform to give their budding careers the decisive push and graduate to major criminal shenanigans, once they get our mandate. You see, unadulterated brazenness and money-driven, blind loyalty of the factotums, so essential for committing serious crimes, spring from the power that is bestowed on elected positions. Without that, this group woefully lacked the distinguishing aura that the previous group was blessed with. But the redeeming feature was that they were all contractors and/or realtors - the right kind of essential attributes that marked them as the success stories in the not-too-distant-future and one could see why they were taking themselves seriously.
(3) The remaining nine, the perceptive judges in us could see even without further investigation, would inevitably be also-rans. Simply because they had no real stature (lamentably not even civil cases against them!) to command respect nor testimonials for brute power to instill fear in the constituents. All they could boast of was some random academic qualification, which would never be put to use for common good (some were engineers and others post graduates, but what good is that, even conceding that their degrees were not bought?). And a self-professed and demonstrated keenness to improve the lives of common men and women around them. Evidently they were not moneybags, which fact unfailingly served to dismantle them from the race forthwith as far as the average voter is concerned. That was the painful clincher.
We dealt with the last group first for very obvious reasons - we wanted to get the feel that we were making some progress!! We realised that probably a few of these would make good elected representatives but chances of them ever getting there were zilch. Out of 400,000 voters, some 10,000 educated people, with misplaced righteousness, might collectively opt for all these good men and women. That obviously is not going to bring the bacon home for these. The million dollar question was whether we wanted to be part of this small, thinking group, just for the satisfaction of having voted with our conscience for the better candidate. The idea of opting for someone who would be a certain loser was not appetizing and definitely depressing. What remained was the difficult choice between (a) those with criminal cases, who have done it all and were awaiting convictions and (b) those who were bursting at their seams to attain that higher glory and would do their damnedest to join the elite group, if only we gave them that window of opportunity, appreciating their eagerness and enthusiasm!
Very distressed by the prognosis thus far, we decided to digress a bit and looked at the photos of all the aspiring leaders in this pool, just to take our minds away from the bewildering task on hand. That was a serendipitous masterstroke and gave us a breakthrough inkling in terms of some criteria for a decision. We could choose one with ostensible belligerence in visage and intimidating bulk in physique, so that `our voice' would be heard in the assembly whenever our worthy representative moves like a bull into the well of the house and disrupts the proceedings. Or we could elect someone seemingly older and more mature, who would quietly sit there without uttering one word (not because he is a profound philosopher but because he cannot speak in public to save his life), shiftily watching `something interesting' on his mobile phone! So, could this be the ultimate deciding factor in helping us cast our votes?
Come to think of it, after all the hoopla, once elected, what are the Honorary Members going to do when they condescend to take a break from disrupting the House to actually legislate?? They would quickly and painlessly pass those bills which perpetuate all the ills of our electoral system - they would legalize electing a person jailed for murder and the like; they would legitimize the continuation in power of those convicts who have appealed against guilty verdicts and are roaming around freely, while manipulating the judicial system to prevent their cases from ever coming up for hearing. If they still had some time, they would bestow additional perks and compensation on themselves and as a concession to the people, would also approve a couple of populist bills when they are close to the next election. And the few brilliant and seemingly earnest and sincere men and women we manage to elect, with the expectation that they would help reform the political class, are pathetic, silent spectators of all these activities. Legal luminaries, economists, wealthy businessmen, scientists and intelligentsia - all of them prove helpless in arresting the avalanche of the ordinary! Aren't they as guilty of betraying our trust as the real offenders??
We shrewdly decided to go with the national party's candidate with the least number of criminal cases against him! What is the big idea of promoting a lesser candidate to a higher level of criminality? Or voting for a candidate who would not win, come what may? Clean candidates have to wait a long while, probably!!
