“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
