Really, SIR? – Bhandaru Srinivasa Rao

“Fearing that what we have, we may lose,

And trembling at the thought that what we are hoping will never materialize,

Fighting and quarrelling,

We climb the hill,

And seek your support.”

 

This, someone aptly summed up as the condition of today’s ordinary voter who possesses all the necessary qualifications to exercise to vote.

 

Here, by “ordinary voter,” I do not mean me. I do not mean people who are proficient in computers. I do not mean the educated, nor do I mean the uneducated.

What I mean to say is these are the people who have no basic knowledge of the constituency, polling station, or booth number where they cast their vote in 2002, twenty-four years ago. Many have even forgotten that they voted there. They do not know how to find out these details. Yet, ever since they reached voting age, they have treated voting as their duty. They are not people who vote for money or for liquor and biryani. They regard voting as their civic duty and have exercised this right, granted to them by the Constitution, for many years.

Over the past twenty-four years, the geographical landscape has changed completely. Technologically, the country has progressed beyond imagination. States have been divided. Constituencies have changed. The names of polling stations and the numbers of polling booths have changed. Even their names also changed in some cases after marriage.  Many people may not even remember the number of the polling booth where they voted in the elections held just two years ago. If that is the case, how many can be expected to remember what happened twenty- four years ago?

 

Among the total electorate, the voters of various political parties account for twenty to forty percent. Another ten percent are supporters or admirers. Another ten percent are indifferent people who do not bother about voting at all. Then there is another thirty percent who have no political colour, taste, or scent. For them, the right to vote carries immense emotional value. They feel that without it, they are as good as dead, as though they do not exist in the population records, or as though they have lost their citizenship.

 

These are the very people described earlier:

“Fearing that what we have, we may lose,

And trembling at the thought that what we are hoping will never materialize,

Fighting and quarrelling,

We climb the hill,

And seek your support.”

 

Do you understand now, my lords?

Whatever reform you introduce, you must design it after considering it from the perspective of ordinary people.

Only then will such reforms receive broad public acceptance.

 

Instead of removing the stones from the rice, the process now seems to involve picking out the rice itself.

 

This is what ordinary people are calling “SIR”, Sir.

Whether you agree or not, this is the truth.

12-09-2026