K N Pandita
In the great claptrap of election campaigning, there are light scenes also that amuse the onlookers as they never anticipate them. We have many such amusing things to notice in our elections once in five years. But our country is not to be isolated for these pleasantries. The history of British elections tells us many fascinating stories. The driver of a bus carrying the voters to the polling both for casting votes to a particular candidate, was enticed and given a strong mouthful of liquor before he sat behind the wheel. In that inebriated condition he plunged the bus into the canal instead of crossing the bridge and barely managed to rescue the passengers but the bus load of votes was denied to the opposite candidate.
In our country, during early years of elections say in 1950s and 60s, the scene at the rural polling stations used to be very exciting. Even today that tradition continues by and large. The women folk of the village treated it like receiving a barat. They put on their colourful and gorgeous rural dress, wore gorgeous ornaments of fake jewellery, and came out in groups of twenty and thirty singing and dancing just as they would receive a bridegroom coming to take his bride. And when they were asked where the bridegroom is, they would point to the ballot box placed safely inside the booth and guarded by the policemen on duty.
The males behaved in a different manner. They brought garlands of flowers with them, cam to the booth, knelt and kissed the mother earth and then put the garland round the neck of the polling officer or the ballot box whichever caught their eyes first. Asked what the ballot box delivered, some answered it delivered the monsoon rains; others said it brought plentiful of harvest. Yet others said they never had met the great leader Gandhiji and now their flower garland would go and become his decoration piece.
This reminds one of a story when aeroplane first landed at Leh airport in early 1950s, the simple and natural people of town brought armful of hey and placed it before the engine hoping that the horse would browse on it. Such stories are heard about people in many parts of Europe. I met a friend in France who had his friend with him. Introducing that friend to me, I was told that the guy lived up somewhere in the foothills of the Alps where people have only motor cars and no other means of travel. This man had come to the town to see what a bus looked like and above all he marvelled at the enormous iron mountain moving on rails meaning the railway. I am not talking of distant times but only of around 2000. It sounds strange but that is the truth.
People in lighter mood make no secret of how they would cheat while voting. Electronic voting machine has controlled cheating to some extent. The voter, after pressing the button of the symbol he wanted to vote for, asked the polling officer on the spot to let him press a couple of more times the same button to tell the candidate that he had cast a dozen of votes in his favour. “What on earth will you get out of cheating?” asked the officer. “He has assured me to get my son employed as peon in Municipality if he wins”, was the answer. So the man has been nursing the hope of the candidate becoming an MLA and his son becoming a peon in Municipality.
Quarrels among home mates over the choice of candidates are also heard especially among well-knit tribes and clans. Even people have been seen coming from words to blows to discover at the end of the day that almost everybody had cast the vote to a wrong candidate. On learning of that sad news, the elder men would send curses both to the candidates and the ballot box.
More vivacious voters would like the prospective candidate be taken out in a huge procession in the village, riding a decorated horse or bullock cart with drum beaters in the trail and urchins and excited womenfolk raising all the hue and noise as if a bridegroom is being bedecked with flowers and wreaths and garlands to be carried for a wedding spree. Versifiers compose verses in praise of their candidates and lambast the opponents in crudest versification that send people into peals of laughter. Some people are reported to get their shanties white washed and cleaned in honour of the occasion of casting the vote in favour of a dalit candidate.
This is how election is turned into a big cultural fiesta in our rural areas. Most interesting thing to be watched during electioneering is the blank promises which the prospective candidates make during their public rallies. Trusting their rhetoric, people decide to vote for him. The nature of promises is amusing free water, free electricity, free bus to the city, free liquor for the oldies and installation of a marriage bureau at the expenses of the Government where the boys and girls of poor villages will be tying knot without any cost.
People have no regrets of having cast vote for the candidate who made bombast promises but did not fulfil even one of these. “Look, did I not tell you that the guy would never do anything if you vote him and elect him. Now you voted him and he would not even pretend to know that you were from his constituency”, said a disappointed voter to his friend. Pat came the reply, “How do you suppose that I voted for him? I never did though everybody says we did”.
At the thanksgiving party of a country legislator who had been returned to the assembly, the largest number of those enjoying themselves in a bout of drinks is of those who were opposed to him at the husting. Who is true and who is not, is a story to be forgotten with the announcement of results. This is how the world’s largest democracy regales on its achievements.
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