Universal Adult Franchise

Another first today - I cast my vote! 

As a teenager, I had always waited to become 21 - the age then for Universal Adult Franchise. We read it in Civics. But there was so much more to elections that Calcutta taught me. The excitement the city would whip-up during the run-up to elections, was almost equal to the run-up to Durga Puja. If you know what Durga Puja is to Calcutta you will know what I am talking about. 

Months before elections one would see myriad party candidates visiting homes, distributing pamphlets, with benign faces and folded hands. Para (neighborhood) dadas (an older man, not goon) would make their follow-up visits after the candidates and explain the good things about their leader and a gossip or two about others. 

I can't forget those (mothers of all) rallies with miles of party supporters. I learnt later that the 'supporters' would be paid two meal and some toddy, takers for which were abundant in Calcutta. And the hinterland from where they would board local trains - ticketless of course - to arrive in the city, walk in endless lines flags in hand, to that humongous patch of green in the heart of the metropolis called Brigade Parade Ground. Brigade cholo was the slogan like it was Quit India in 1942. Then there were those passionate speeches, legendary traffic jams and endless frustration that Calcuttans suffered. The din was unmissable!

And of course, there was public art on ANY available spot. Your bad luck if you had just re-painted your house a virgin white. But credit where it's due, the posters and graffiti were unique with art, satire, humour, caricature, historical allusions, brilliantly appealing to the entire spectrum from subaltern to intellectual. There was something about the visuals, they were very Soviet-esque. 

On election day there were banners, festoons, pamphlets and party workers in their Sunday best. And of course, my parents getting ready early in the morning, for their walk with the neighbours to the polling booth. Later, they would tell us who they voted for. Their vote was always split. Then we would take sides and have a loud debate about who we should support when we grow up. 

I left home for NDA at 18, three more years for Universal Adult Franchise. The year I turned 20, with a year to go, I learnt there was a legislation which reduced the voting age to 18. What a pity, I thought! 

In the IAF years that followed, I turned the divine patriot, the chosen one, above the rest of them civil servants, the babus, of whom I was cynical, but they ran the system. And for politicians I held special hatred. I was loathe to associate myself with elections. To me, elections got us back the same folks with different faces. 

I held that belief and still do faintly, but my 40th year has been one of change. Improbable as it may seem that one vote makes a difference out of hundreds of millions, I embraced the possibility. This year I exercised my vote. And to be honest I felt that I contributed.

Besides friends who exhorted me to get up and vote, there were some more reasons. Firstly, India to me, had moved on. From those days of badly designed Ambassadors from Hindustan Motors, to Toyotas andand more. Earlier, privileged Oxbridge elite would hold our nation in rapturous awe to speeches about trysts with destiny. Like a mute herd, uneducated and unaware, a nation listened and clapped. While the political class and their cohorts skimmed off and stashed away for their descendants. Today we have an economist PM, and his Cambridge tag may inspire respect but not awe. A million educated Indians can not only eyeball him but also beat him in a debate. And he'd rather not make speeches about trysts because that will not get the masses to exult. The masses now look for results and don't get excited by floral speeches and platitudes. 

It was the time for action I thought, and if I did not vote for change, I must not expect change to happen. 

(DISCLAIMER: THIS POST IS FROM 2008)