I surrender my voting right

The first time I voted in a political election was when I was 43. It was for the Delhi assembly election. I had migrated to Delhi just two years prior that election. Before that I lived in Shillong for 15 long years without ever getting an opportunity to vote since I was a dkhar (outsider) there. [Read more about all that in my memoir: Autumn Shadows.]

I have been a responsible voter ever since Delhi gave me the citizen’s right. However, my voting right makes no sense to me now. So I’m seriously considering giving up that right. Do I live in a democracy at all?

Indian democracy today is not unlike the scenario of two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner. You know who the two wolves are. You may be yet to realise that you are the sheep.

Two citizens, just two, decide what 1340 million people want or should want. That’s present India. The 1340 million are just one sheep. The wolves tell us that they have been given the mandate to impose their will on the nation by a vast majority of the sheep. That’s democracy, of course. Do I want to belong to such a democracy? Do I belong there, in the first place? When the majority of the sheep decide that they are white and people like me are black sheep, that’s democracy too, and I should meekly extend my neck to be slit.

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter,” said Winston Churchill. I have much longer conversation with India’s average voters. You find them all over, on the social media especially. They are not even average, I think having listened to all the balderdash they speak and write in the name of absurd concepts like nationalism, patriotism, revanchism, and you name it.

The great sci-fi writer, Isaac Asimov, was of the view that most of our political and cultural life is nurtured by the false notion (upon which democracy essentially relies) that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’. India is now passing through a never-before-seen phase of anti-intellectualism. Intellectuals are urban Naxalites or antinational or plain traitors. They are intimidated in various ways. Some are even killed with impunity. Ignorance reigns. Stupidity dominates.

People shouldn’t be afraid of their government in a democracy. It should be just the other way: the government should be afraid of the people. When you live in an inverted democracy, where the majority of sheep vote for the wolves assuming that the wolves will satisfy their appetite eating up the minority, there’s little hope for the country. It may look bright now for the majority. But history teaches us that any system that feeds on a section of its own community will eventually eat into just anyone. Anyone can be labelled as antinational or urban Naxalite or anything for the sake of just two wolves.

We have reached a stage, anyway, when voting doesn’t matter at all. A stage when just two wolves decide everything for all of us. And they possess the eloquence to sway our convictions, our hearts and our passions. Soon they won’t need our votes at all. If our votes do make any difference, they won’t let us do it, as Mark Twain said.