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I Too Want To Cast My Vote

By Suhail Deen

12 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org

I too want to cast my vote. I wonder though what shall I vote for. I am too determined thus far not to cast my vote not because I have to prove my loyalty to someone or some cause. Not because I don't believe in the power of democracy. I simply won't exercise my franchise because I am not convinced to the least that it does matter. Moreover, the more I think over the issue, the more distant I go from the ballot.

Why should I be concerned who's going to become the next chief minister of the state as long as this change does not translate into the empowerment of an impoverished common man? Picking up from the available bunch of politicians I don't see any sort of promise to be found in anyone of them to bring about the change my people and land cry for. My casting a vote wouldn't change anything. Or would it?

Why should I waste, then, my power of choice to choose among a few men, who are out there vying for the chair of power, which is their main and only concern? The life of the common man post-elections will continue the way it used to be ere these elections: broken, humiliated, full of agony and anguish, wounded and deprived. I will continue be a mute and helpless witness to the same life and miserable lifestyle all around. Electricity, roads and water! Why should these form an election manifesto? Are these not the basic and essential civic amenities which every citizen, irrespective of his/her social or political affiliations, is entitled to notwithstanding the fact which political party comes to power? What my voting or not voting has to do with the efficiency of the departments whose chief responsibility is to provide to the state and her people these essential services?

Would my vote wipe the tears off any widow whose innocent husband fell to the merciless and unjustifiable bullets of khaki men who surround us wheresoever we turn to, then definitely and happily I'll vote! If my vote helps bring the justice to any one of the countless Kashmiri boys getting killed on one pretext or the other, I'll come forward and cast my vote? I too want to be the party of this process and celebrate and dance on the streets cheering for my favorite candidate or party if I see hope that any one of the political party or leader is going to bring real joy onto the faces of the people.

I can live without "bijli", "sadak" and "pani" as we are used to surviving without these essentials since time immemorial. What fun is in having them sans self respect and dignity! What good is any sort of development if it's not there with due value to human life and aspirations!

Kashmir is become a land of tragedy. It's an appropriate convas for Visual Bhardwaj's Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet adaptation, Haider. It's no more a colourful and cheerful spot to picturise the Bollywood's refreshing and romantic movies. Would my voting bring this part of the world back to its bygone days of glory? I see orphanages, graveyards, depressed souls, all around. What would a vote do? Till I don't see the collective conscience and the common aspirations of the masses being honored, for which they experienced too much and suffered so much, I will hold the exercise to vote. Let me end this note with Rabindra Nath Tagore's timeless poem:

WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Suhail Deen is a teacher by profession having concern like any other sensitive mind about many issues prevalent on our earth like environment, violence, greed, inequality, corruption and injustice. May the good sense prevail and the mankind discover the ways to live in harmony and peace with utmost respect towards the human life and values!


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