On Election Duty

Lok - Sabha 2014 Election has been unique & historical in its own way. It has been
so

interesting because of the increase in reach of Communication mediums, the social

media

and the 3rd World Parties (Which I had already mentioned in my earlier Post)
joining the

race along with the 2 traditional players. This Election has been unique also
because

this time at least India (Not Bharat) knows what it wants and it looks like finally
the

Political Parties have realised that the old formula of divide and Rule on the
basis of

Caste and religion is now not accurate and eventually they have started talking
about the

Statistics and models which actually should be the way to Contest in a healthy way.

However, most of the Bharat is still like a poor and innocent Manoj Kumar of
bollywood

movies and depends more on the grace of God than the policies endorsed by different

governments.

By the way what actually provoked me to come back and write after a break of almost
15

months is the very special experience which I had this year during the Lok-sabha
elections

in Vadodara (Gujarat) which has already been in lime light due to the candidature
of Modi

from the constituency.

Though I had never cast my vote in any Lok-Sabha election earlier, I got an order
to go

on Election Duty as Asstt. Preciding Officer.

I got posted in a small village called Merakuva in Savli Taluka. Though Google Maps
helped

me a bit to reach the first location i.e. Savli Taluka Seva Sadan Kacheri from
where i

along with 3 other men and a lady had to collect our EVM and other documents for
our Poll

Booth but it failed to locate my final destination which helped me realise that
still

there is an area of improvement for Google too! We had to reach Merakuva in GSRTC's

bus which are good enough to travel. Also thanks to the Administration of Gujarat
Govt.

because even though it was a remote location and there was only a single lane road
but it

was a pakka road throughout. The road was so narrow that the bushes were
infiltrating

through the windows of our bus and had there been some other bus coming from the
front,

there was no way out to give pass . The only solution in that case would be a
compromise

by one of the buses to go in reverse gear for about 5-6 kms!

Election duty is the only day when a Government Servant realises the efforts a
Sales agent

makes in order to sale his product from Door to door. Though you are not required
to sale

any product over here but the conditions are quite tough because of the lack of

facilities; even the basic ones like food and shelter. You are supposed to stay in
a

classroom of a Govt. school, with no beddings or food provided by the Govt. But
thanks to

the culture of "Atithi Devo Bhava" which is still followed in Bharat as compared to

"Atithi tum kab jaoge" in India! It is possible to survive without any facility in
such

remote and totally unknown area only because of the open hearts of the people
living in

this category of India.

One the judgement day, as the clock struck 7, people from the village and other
nearby

villages started coming to vote. What was surprising to see was that women, most of
them

hiding their face in their ghungat, who dont even know how to sign and might not
have gone

out on a trip for themselves, took out time and turned up to the booth. They didnt
even
knew whom to vote and how to vote. Most of them had to be ultimately instructed by
us to

press any of the "bhura (blue) buttons" and they just buried their finger on the
button

which they found nearest to their finger. A second instruction had to be given
again to

remove their finger from the button. A childish happiness came instantaniously as
soon as

they pressed the button and then they run away from the room with shy. Trust me
this was

the case with most of the villagers irrespective of gender. On the other hand, I
was

watching Inked Finger display pics replacing the selfies in Facebook and Whatsapp
and most

of the friends puttinh their status like : "Voted for India", "Modified" etc. Now
this was

an amazing contrast which I encountered. I was sitting in a part where people were
not

even knowing whom and why they were voting. They had their issues like un-
employement,

poverty but they were happy enough and contended. They were not complaining to
anyone.

They didn't have demands in their eyes. They didnt come to vote for change. They
were not

showing off their fingers on Fb and WhatsApp. They just came may be because some
party

agent might have dragged them there or may be they were excited to see a machine
which

gives a beep sound on pressing a Bhura button. On the other side on my so smart
phone I

was constantly getting updates of different fingers painted blue with a proud
status

"Voted for this and that". Some of them claiming the winning chances of their
favourite

candidate and white wash chances of the other. They didn't even know that next day
or the

other when media will analyse the Polling data and will see the number of votes
higher in

NOTA or to some totally weak candidate, media will start creating an image that
there has
been a shift in the mind of people, but actually the problem is that the unexpected

variation in the statistics represents these thousands of Indian voters who are not

literate about the Polling or rather they are not bothered enough by the political
parties and that is because

they are not in the main stream social media and therefore it is hard enough to
change

their mind and bring them to your side. Whereas the smarter India can easily be
won by

putting some fancy meme on some social networking website and making it viral.
Crores and

Crores of money is spent in advertisements but yet people are so illiterate towards

Polling. How and Why ? What is the target audience of various advertisments
broadcasted in

all the meium of communication ? Is it the India which already is so active in the

social media that it automatically decides its vote after believing what it is made
to see

or the India which is still kept in dark for no reason. I think there should be a
change and the change should be in order to connect this 2 states of
a Single country
Jai Hind