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The more things change...

This is actually an election-eve kind of piece, brought about by what was originally intended as a quinquennial exercise but which thanks to the Raja of Mandal has become virtually an annual exercise. In a way, one is happy with the frequent holding of elections, if only for the reason that promises made and unkept are remembered. Five years, one thinks, is too long a time, given the cliché that public memory is short.

What do elected representatives, whether in the Lok Sabha or in the assembly, do? To me, the answer is, nothing. There is no party ideology involved here, no principles of life and death being debated by the political parties which wake up once in a while to recall that they have to once again trudge back to the same set of suckers to get their vote.

So it is that one votes. In hope, in belief in the democratic system, and also to keep the friendly neighbourhood hood at bay, since it is common knowledge that whether in South Mumbai or South Calcutta or Bihar votes get cast even by persons who have never been near a polling booth all their life. So rather than have one's vote go to a mass murderer or a congenital pederast, one makes the effort to vote, after ascertaining which among the 40-odd candidates is least offensive. One is lucky to have this choice; I am told in many parts of India, still, the choice is only of the degree of criminality.

Maharashtra elected its state representatives five years ago, and federal representatives last year. Since the working of the federation is rather complex, and one seldom has any dealings with one's member of Parliament, it is the local legislator and the corporator who are often the pointsmen for a political party. Unless there is a predetermination over the choice of prime minister, the choice of an MP is always contingent on the performance of his party's lower-level electees.

Five years ago, when the saffron combine was elected to form the government in Mumbai, it was with a tremendous amount of expectation and hope. And, rather than focus on bread and butter issues, all one has seen is a further deterioration in the quality of life all around. Of course, the movers and shakers in the combine will not see things this way, ensconced as they are in their own lives of the privilegentsia.

For the saffron brigade, governance has meant curbs on artistic freedom and worse, official goondagardi, ie, when its ministers find the time to focus away from inaugurating flyovers. In the meantime, civic life has become a nightmare, prices hotfoot to the heavens, but its ministers will not know all these things.

Like earlier this week, when the truckers struck work to protest against the levy of toll on trucks entering Mumbai with goods. The strike was allowed to continue for three days, during which the concerned minister took out advertisements assuring the populace that things were under control, even as vegetable prices went through the roof in the bazaars. The ministers, or the bureaucrats for that matter, don't shop, they are not vulnerable to the market's vagaries, it is the voters, who supposedly are the masters in a democracy, who suffer this and worse.

Oh no, this is not a pitch for a Congress governance in place of the saffron brigade. The point I make is that regardless of whoever is elected to power, at the state capitals or in distant Delhi, to expect a change is to ask for the moon. Developmental work is incidental to powerplay, and if anything has got done in the last 47 years it was not deliberate. For proof, compare the development index of the country with that of our politicians.

What is the citizen asking, after all? Unlike the desperadoes on the border who are inspired by high ideals, the man on the flyover only wants a decent life, where he doesn't have to grease palms, doesn't have to fight to have his garbage cleared, none of all that he is forced to do today.

But then, the system as we have it in India is loaded against the citizenry. How many times has one read about 'illegal constructions/slums' becoming victims to the demolition squad, and yet, when the same principles as apply to the rest of us is sought to be applied against the favourite haunt of the Mumbai jetset, the matter gets dragged to the high court. Where, when one of the city's most upright judges throws the restaurant's case out, Nelson Wang's lawyers are able to move the Supreme Court within minutes, and get a stay on the matter.

How does an encroachment become justified only because it is carried out by the rich and famous, when with large sections of miserable humanity the same is met with bulldozers and hammers? The zeal shown in depriving the people of their right to livelihood, never mind if they are in no position that such right is theirs, is seldom shown in the case of the mighty and the powerful. It is like there are two parallel systems operating in India, one for the haves, the other for the have-nots. In between the two is the large section of the wannabes, whose heart beats for the ranks they have left behind and who will not get admittance into the rarefied ranks they covet if they paused to think...

Like in the case of the thousands of villagers facing submergence as the Narmada rises. The instruments of the State, like the Supreme Court, are able to mete out quick-fix justice to those able to afford the cost of such justice, yet, in the same land, when innocent lives are at stake, neither officialdom nor the State seem to show any concern. It is as if the price of development is to be born only by a handful unfortunate to be in the way of the juggernaut, while for the rest of humanity it is a roadshow at best.

You can vote, you don't have to, but this is the reality about the nation called India. The people who democracy is meant to serve are the last to benefit from the system. Often, in fact, the system works against them. Is it any surprise, then, that 47 years of the farce has brought on ennui on the part of the voter -- resulting in an unstable polity?

Saisuresh Sivaswamy