Dot Hai Toh Hot Hai?

The "Dot Hai Toh Hot Hai", public-service campaign run by Radio Mirchi, urging citizens to go out and vote in Pune on 23rd April, ran for more than a month before the polls. Many other campaigns were run by various sections of the print, television and online media.
Jagorey, conducted a well publicized campaign from Sept'08 urging citizens to register their names in Voter Lists and go out and vote on Voting Day.

I myself was inspired by these campaigns and even before these campaigns, out of guilt of not having voted regularly, wanted to vote this time. I had last voted in the 1990 Maharashtra Assembly Elections at a polling booth at Pali Hill in Mumbai for the first time. Didn't vote since then until last week. Same reasons as many many others - I am too busy!, Vote doesn't count, Don't know how to register for voting, etc. I was just fooling myself!

The campaigns were expected to galvanise educated Civil Society, particularly the middle class to go out and vote. Nothing of the sort seems to have happened. Voting percentages in a supposedly rights conscious city like Pune (the NGO capital of the country) was @ 40%, the lowest ever for the city. 26/11 was touted to be a "wake up call", " a galvanizing factor", "a catalyst" for CHANGE! Only 43% of Mumbai voted and South Mumbai the epicenter of 26/11, even less!

Is Educated Civil Society really waking up? I am sure they are and they will. But not yet, not as fast as some people hoped for. The "secession of the successful" continues and its not a priority yet for the middle class that seems to be doing well in any case. They think they are doing well in spite of the government and only due to their own "hard work". Humility is a lost virtue these days!

Several reasons are also being put out on how the system is screwed up and in spite of their 15 minute "hard work" to find their names in the Voters List, the screwed up system didn't have their names in the Voter Lists! This in spite of:

• Jagorey starting their campaign (in Sept 08) and putting up a corporate style service to help find your constituency and filing for inclusion of your name in the Voters List
• One of more than 14 documents being accepted as residence proof!!
• The EC and district, city administrations putting out the first version of the Voters List for public verification, first in Oct 2008 and again in January 2009.
• The verification of your name was a 10 minute job at a EC office in January with a name search done on a laptop - typing your name in English to find your name in the Devanagari voting list.
• Huge coverage exhorting citizens to check their names in advance and take action to get their names in, right up to 31st March, a fortnight before voting day.
• Plenty of websites pointing to "10 ways to check your name in the voters list" (e.g. smartvote.in).
• Name search sites to look for your names online
• SMS service where you could send a SMS with your name and get details of your voting booth.
• Several corporators, political parties doing their bit to help people get themselves registered (We got our names registered with service from a local corporator in July 08)

This may almost sound like government propaganda! But its just the list of facts and humility to accept that a big and sincere effort was made by many to help people go out and vote. I don't know of any other "public transaction" that has got so much support from government agencies, NGOs and a section of active civil society. Yet, the convenient excuse "I wanted to vote, but the "System" is screwed up as I have always said...I told you so". Ludicrous comments like "I dont trust the EVMs, they all seem to be rigged". This after several newspaper articles and TV programs have explained in great detail how tamper proof the system is and there are 500 odd political parties and 100+ NGOs to "check" the system. Is there scope for the "System" to improve, yes sure there is. But then, there's a bigger scope for Civil Society to improve as well.

I think its a long way to go before "lazy, arrogant and selfish" civil society wakes up, takes the effort to get their names in voters lists and goes and votes even if they need to brave the 40 degree heat for an hour every few years. Even if voting was made compulsory as per L K Advani's suggestion, school-boy excuses and fake "I was ill" notes will be used to avoid voting. The only event that MAY galvanise educated civil society is if the government announces that citizens are no longer allowed to freely travel to the US/Europe/Australia for studies, jobs and visits! Then we MAY see the middle class go and vote out the proposal in large numbers!

I for one enjoyed the voting experience and didn't find any "irregularities" or "insincerity's" in the polling machinery! Here's hoping the "Go and Vote" campaigns continue and voting percentages improve in the upcoming Maharashtra assembly polls and Lok Sabha elections in 2014.