The voting process is finally over. The results, packed in the EVM, would soon be out. The guessing game has anyway begun. Some entertainment we have to have, given the difficult life, right?
As citizens though, is it enough to have voted, that, too, if at all your name was in the voters' list? Absolutely not! In a democracy, the citizenship duty does not begin and end with voting. It is necessary to participate in the democratic processes.
Yes, unlike the unorganised sector, we, the voters from the organised sector, religiously pay the income tax, not to mention the indirect versions thereof such as the GST as we insist on the receipt on every purchase. As we use the online payment mode often, we do help in the transparency of the financial processes as well.
What is far more important is to keep a check on the execution of the vision the political parties promised. Easy it is in a way because the proceedings of the Lower and Upper Houses are aired on various channels these days.
In a way though, extremely difficult is political participation. Almost till the nineties, in the public sphere, demonstrations, sit-in's were the norm. Now a days, very rare is such social awareness. Unfortunately, moreover, if used at all, such proceedings are extremely biased and party-politics-motivated. To pull down someone is the goal. Never is it to empower the common man, the ordinary citizen.
Do not believe me? Okay, find out how often the common man demonstrated for better roads, for instance? The corollary is equally true. There is road rage just because someone overtook someone. How often do citizens insist on the lane discipline while driving a car or riding a bicycle? Signals are meant for jumping, right? Roadside curbs are public spittoons, right? How does it matter that the COVID virus silently keeps mutating?
In other words, it is not enough to vote once for all and forget for the next five years. We, the citizens, must participate in the civic proceedings in a creative and transformative way, right?
Pratima@Like citizens, like rulers!
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