Quid pro quo. The raison ‘ d etre of Indianness. Ah, well, let me switch to English. Does anyone do anything for nothing in India today? One may say it is an universal phenomenon, the quintessence of every human ‘ s behaviour – to expect something in return for every act, howsoever trivial it is.
But then that is understandable and even acceptable for the material West, but what of spiritual Bharat, the land of Gita where Karma is supreme and the desire for the fruit is forbidden? Well, in this politician ‘ s paradise that is India today, the Lord himself would have had to bill Arjuna for his lengthy rendition!
Thanks to politicians and their own version of Gita which seems to suggest that one must do one’s duty and then take the reward under the table, even charity comes with a price tag.
But wait. There seems to be one tribe in this godforsaken country which actually does something for nothing in return. This tribe in fact has been performing its duty very religiously over the past several decades, and believe me, they are yet to get anything for themselves.
On the contrary the beneficiaries of their duty have prospered endlessly, but this tribe -they are called voters – remain mere launching pads. The elections, which theoretically should be a once in five year affair, but has become an annual charade thanks to brittle parliaments and assemblies, perhaps is the single major occasion that offers Indians a unique opportunity to emulate the Lord’s preachings in the true spirit.
In their avatar as voters, they display their overwhelming sense of benign charity – of course, to wholly undeserving characters – by trudging up to the booth in the heat and dust, casting their vote and then walking back empty-handed.
In fact it is a comic irony that their hands should be blackened by the indelible ink when they have actually not taken anything in return. Again, what of those who get paid to vote, one may ask, but then we are talking of the good majority for whom voting is a democratic obligation as citizens, not of the bad minority who put up that right for sale.
For the TN voter, it is now charity time again. And the prospect of any benefit accruing to him has become even more dim than ever, for earlier there used to be at least promises. But this time around, the politicians are so busy with their own bickerings over numbers and seats that they have not had the time and mind to think of what to offer, even if only for the record, to the hapless voter.
Perhaps they would rationalise that no promise is any day better than making one and breaking it, but the cold reality is that in the ongoing runup to the elections, the people of the State have been taken for granted as never before. Forget about promises, there is not even the faintest regard for public opinion or for that matter, people’s memory howmuch ever jaded it is supposed to be.
If in the past it took politicians some weeks of ground work to shift their allegiances, today they have no qualms about switching loyalties at the drop of a hat-no, make it a towel. They are always on the move, travelling at godspeed and ever on the lookout for greener pastures with the eagerness of a hungry sheep and with the sole agenda of self-aggrandisement and of course, self-preservation.
Even a cursory study of the TN political scene between 1996 and 2001 would be extremely revealing of how every single party without exception has been swinging like the pendulum from one extreme to another and the callousness and flippancy with which they had justified every immoral act of theirs.
While the DMK and the AIADMK remain the only two mutually exclusive parties in the State, every other outfit has been bedfellows at one time or the other in either of these formations.
The footloose PMK, the ever-confused TMC, the irrelevant Congress, the left-out Leftists, the perennial orphan MDMK, an ambitious BJP and of course the countless caste outfits have all displayed a high degree of political promiscuity in the runup to the polls. Most of the current alliances were clinched at the very last minute after hectic bargaining and blackmail and even now one cannot be too sure.
But the point is they could have gone either way meaning these parties could have been in the other alliance as easily and cosily as they are in the current one. Every one of these parties conducted twin-track negotiations even while holding out the threat of an illusory third option just to get a better deal, all in full public glare and with scant regard for principles or ideology.
And they would all now knock at our doors even more shamelessly, seeking our ratification for their immorality. And to be sure our ears would be inundated by all the usual lofty rhetoric about secularism, communalism, corruption, this, that and even that!
As is apparent, in all their shenanigans the people are nowhere in the reckoning, to the extent that they are only one step ahead of the electronic voting machines in the order of importance in the politicians ‘ scheme of things. Only that the EVMs have been certified as fool proof, a virtue that the voter can never even dream of laying claim to! What’s our stake in the ensuing elections? How is it going to matter who occupies Fort St. George and who would lead the inevitable walkouts in the Assembly when it assembles?
Now this is not a clarion call to the charitably disposed voters to shun the elections. In any case, if they do not vote, somebody else will, and so we might as well commit honourable suicide rather than allow someone else to slit our throats. Yet we cannot help expressing our anguish at the utter futility of the exercise, particularly when it is obvious that the polls are not going to make even an iota of difference to our life.
Maybe, it could make a difference to Jayalalitha or Karunanidhi, for if one goes to Fort the other would automatically have to walk the courts. May be the polls would make a difference for the PMK founder who wants a separate kingdom for his son.
The polls could also turn out to be a jackpot for the umpteen caste chieftains who are in the fray so that they can realise their petty parochial dreams. And of course, bountiful benefit is also bound to accrue to a few chosen individuals contesting under different party banners for the sake of authenticity and acceptance, but who would not hesitate to shed their skins once voted in.
But there is going to be nothing for the voter who would continue to remain a hapless political animal – an ass to be precise.
| POINT OUT : The polls could also turn out to be a jackpot for the umpteen caste chieftains who are in the fray so that they can realise their petty parochial dreams — T R JAWAHAR |