Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Exit or not and those 32%!

Exit polls have never gathered so much of controversy and popularity as it has this year. It may be because of the autonomy enjoyed by the press today against all the negative publicity of the government last year or it may be that social media has never been as active as it is in the current times. News anchors and chat groups are busy with in depth and in breadth analysis seat wise and state wise. TRPs are rising which of course will reach a culmination point on the evening of 23rd May, the day of decisions, the day of deciding the next five years for India. The Sensex has been behaving like an exasperated bull trying to take deep lunges of peaked fervor and then panting a little every evening before resting for a while. I am sure there will be many leaves in the job sector tomorrow for the bourgeois wanting to be glued to their TV sets or other media on 23rd.


But why is the whole hullabulla about just another poll result? - this question is quite frequented by the ignorant and most of the NRIs who have stamped India with "India will never change"! And it will be only futile to explain that it is for the future of the nation that is at a position like never before, as the word 'nation' may not resonate with them.


Politics and cricket have always been the talk of each town in India - as so many hopes and aspirations are related to both of them. We are a huge population and to be a leader and a hero for such a vast number is no joke. It needs to be appreciated, awaited, anticipated and celebrated and this is what we Indians do. This gives us the ray of light at the end of the tunnel which I am sure is getting shorter and shorter, unless the world comes to an end because of climatic changes or the glaciers melting down!


While we look forward to who will exit from the political scenario, if not permanently then may be for a few weeks after the results (say to Columbia or Thailand), do we also introspect that why we feel so dependent on our government for devising our progress. One reason is of course because moving things through our bureaucracy is a task which even Hercules would not have dared to take up, but another may be our legacy. We always like to follow - leaders, kings, God, and now social media and trends! We feel safe that way - going away from the norms is too risky and time consuming. And being an Indian, we always have less time - more than half our lives is gone in fitting into the social structure or saving enough for our future generations or making our ends meet or if in Bangalore then dreaming of a startup or being stuck in traffic! Most of us want to play it safe - we will never relinquish our tea shop and go to bring about a social change and lead a faction of people leave apart a whole country! And there is nothing wrong in it. There is nothing wrong in being in the safe zone, being comfortable in our cocoons. Though unfortunately, 32% of us felt too comfortable to even go out an vote! And "comfortable" is certainly not the right word when I think about them - its being "reckless and soul-less".


Now, as we await for the real result to be declared, I hope those 32% will introspect that if "corruption" gets chosen over "development" by a small margin or because of some spineless coalition, it would be because of their lack of sense! It would be because they didn't want to change their ignorance into duty towards the country, a country of more than a billion people. The billion who will then have a leader or set of leaders who don't deserve to be there in the driver's seat. Those "by hook or crook" leaders will use country's resources, tax payer's money and their power to take decisions to regress the country by years and thus will substantiate those set of human kind who claim "India will never change". So, while I hope that those 32% do not cause any political calamity for the next five years in India, I also wish that for them the election results will also mean more than just an adrenalin rush - after all "Exit" is a strong word if it means exiting progress also for those 32%!

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