Dr Gopal Parthasarthi Sharma
“When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”
? Euripides, Orestes
While the people are still struggling to recuperate themselves in the aftermath of devastating floods, they are yet again deluged with mind-boggling promises flowing all around in the election bound state of Jammu & Kashmir. Employment for millions, corruption free society, a vibrant economy and everything goodie goodie seems to inundate everybody. The election season is on and so are hollow promise machines of the politicians shooting fanciful ideas about the future of the state. Caught in ‘promises dilemma’ the candidates seem to have shun all rationality. They seem to be depending on their age old wisdom that voters have short memories and they prefer to re-elect liars than to risk their votes for potentially honest but incompetent new entrants.
Going by the pre-poll announcements by almost all the candidates cutting across political spectrum, one thing is sure that the state is slated to have each and every constituency developed as a ‘model constituency’ within a short span of time. The idea is undoubtedly thrilling as every constituency would have best roads, potable water, 24×7 electricity, corruption free offices, solar energy projects, airports, colleges, stadiums, universities , super specialty hospitals, engineering colleges, dams, express highways, and above all docile patwaris dropping our revenue records at our place just on a phone call. Tatas, Ambanis, Adanis setting up industrial units in every part of the state, tourists thronging every nook and corner, where, as of now not even locals prefer to go. The picture seems so encouraging that a common voter feels like casting his vote even before the scheduled day. Prosperity, peace, development, employment and a corruption free system is up for grabs just for a vote. It’s really exciting. If the candidates are really serious about their claims to positive change in every sphere, then we are certainly headed towards a golden era.
The most interesting thing about these developmental offers is that all the dream sellers seem to have come to a consensus on this subject and vying for offering more and more features to these ‘model constituencies’. The voters feel that they should have more than one vote, rather multiple votes, to elect most of these dream sellers. The colors of their flags and election symbols may be different, but their promises are alike as if they come from the same school. How united are they in making these promises. They don’t have any issues while picking up each other’s invented words, the best being the ‘smart city’ as everyone is talking about making their constituency a smart city. Even if the constituency is a rural one, the candidate will first develop it into a city and then eventually into a smart city.
The best part about these electoral promises is the sugar-coated language that these candidates use to woo voters as they seem to have been drained out of all the arrogance, high headedness, and rough behavior by a mere document called ‘Election Notification’. They are offering solutions to the most complex problems in such simple ways that may put to shame the field experts. They seem to be working on the premise that voters are by nature ‘eternal optimists’ who want to hear what they wish irrespective of the fact whether the promises are kept or not.
They are so eloquent in throwing away freebies to their electors that they are ready to bypass their party manifestos. Independents are at the most advantageous position as they have nothing to defend against a party manifesto. Without having any sense of administrative setup of the state or the nation, they are offering anything to the electors from a new university to an international airport without any concern for the requisite technology or financial viability of the project. While they are fighting the state elections they have no problems in hobnobbing with the Union list items while offering better international relations with other countries.
Worst hit are the candidates who are asking for a fresh mandate after enjoying fruits of democracy for six or twelve years. They unashamedly offer the most while giving no justifications for their total negligence and glaring inconsistencies in the past. If confronted or cornered by media or well informed electors they have a series of allegations for others who stopped them from making their respective constituencies worth living. When they are out of words to give more excuses they ask for a fresh mandate, a new beginning as they have learnt the real pain of the masses only yesterday. Their newly found enlightenment about regional biases has nothing to do with their utter failures and monumental lapses in the assembly all these years. Oblivious of the fact that in this social media age all their past misdeeds go viral within no time, they are still trying to fool electorate. They don’t realize that this tendency of offering impracticable things to electorate has not only tarnished the image of all politicians but has resulted in distrust for democracy.
As the electoral process will move further their clamoring is bound to get louder and louder and the offers would be even more obscene – mere rubbing salt into the people’s wounds. It’s really easy to boast about great things in future but how these candidates will ensure that their promises were not mere pipe dreams that would not fizzle out after they get the mandate. As electorate we must consider pragmatically the likelihood of these promises being fulfilled. The time has come that we as responsible electorate not only interrogate what they say but also confront them publicly as to what is possible and what not as most of the promises only show rosy picture and are miserably short on detail. It is important that the electorate begin to ask difficult questions to these promise mongers and scrutinize their promises at the altar of rationality. This is essential for a vibrant democracy that we do not become victims of those who have the gift of the gab.
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