Democracy is visible at its peak during an election. It is the time when people actually get to decide what they see as the best course for society to take. The stakes are quite high for all stakeholders and so are their emotions. The recent Taluk and Zilla Panchayat in Karnataka stood true to this, and I got to witness it from close quarters!
I chose to assist one of the more "progressive" groups in setting up an information desk at a polling booth in the Whitefield (Bengaluru) area. Making my way to the location, I decided to stop for a quick cup of tea at one of the local shops by the road. "One cup tea", I said. "Have you come for the election as well?", the vendor quipped. I nodded. As I stood watching all the different groups and parties set up their desks on the other side of the road, I saw a woman approach the shop with a jute bag hanging by her left arm.
"Have you come for the election too?", the vendor quipped again. "Yes. I've come all the way from Hoskote for this", the woman replied. "Wow, that's a determined voter", I thought turning to get a good look at her. "How much did they promise to pay?", enquired the vendor. "₹1000 per side. So that's ₹2000 since only two people are standing. I spend ₹200 to travel, so I'm making ₹1800 out of this.", the woman responded casually, as if this was routine for her. It certainly wasn't routine to me. I looked around for some official or policeman to go to and report this but, what proof do I have? Who am I? What's the process? Killing the crusader inside, I made my way to the information desk I was going to sit at.
"I was going to stand for the election this time also, but this party did not support me", the man beside me said turning his chair towards me. "Why?" "Because I am from apartment and they want someone from the village." In Bengaluru's IT area Whitefield, you can find high rise apartments where most of the IT crowd stays and the villages where the people who support this crowd stays. By support I mean running the shops around, laundry services, maintenance work etc. "Last time I lost by just 5 votes. The other guy paid people and all that and still I managed to put up a fight." "This paying voters thing, nobody complains or what?" I asked with a hint of anger in my tone. "Who will complain? People will not take on the politicians. The candidates will not complain because then their own can of worms will get opened. So everybody just ignores it."
"They give food and liquor too. I hate this liquor thing. Even a person who is not an addict becomes one when elections arrive. Last time my opponent spent around ₹15 lakhs on the election." "Why didn't you complain?", I questioned. "What was my proof? I don't have any witnesses and I certainly don't have any evidence. It's all very sad. And anyway, people from the village supported him. They want their own person to win, not someone from the apartment. But some of them see the truth and support us because they know that we are clean. For instance, the guy standing this time, his youth groups are threatening to leave him if he does not distribute liquor like the other candidates. What can he do? He will lose the support if he doesn't give in. Okay, I will go cast my vote and come. You manage here.", he said as he got up to walk towards the pooling station.
"A politician who wants to change all the above issues will just have to indulge in them because otherwise he will never win?", I wondered scratching my forehead. Just then another man who was assisting sat down next to me. I struck up a conversation. He was from the village and that piqued my curiosity. "Why are you with the apartment people?" "I like this person. He is a good man who actually believes in doing something good for all of us. See, he is laying footpaths on the entire stretch of road here. He's getting some cleanliness drives organized too." "How much do the people get paid for voting for a particular candidate?" "Depends. Some are convinced with just food and liquor. But these guys don't take the risk so they pay everyone around ₹1000 per person. Even the voters are smart, they take from all the candidates. So whoever pays more, lands that person's vote." "What are the police doing standing there then?", I almost raised my voice. "Why would they try to antagonize the community they live and work in? Also, what proof do they have?", he asked as a matter of fact. He then stood up to go help his family vote after asking his assistant to sit with me.
"You're from which apartment?", the assistant asked me. "I'm actually not from here. I have only come to help with the election. So what do you do?" "I'm a plumber in this apartment and my boss who left is the facility manager there." "That's nice. Did you vote?" "No. My name is in Odisha not here." "What about the other staff in your apartment?" "They'll go little later because only after lunch they'll get money to vote. You can go see now, people will come in huge groups to vote" "Your boss also got money?", I tried act detective. "Yes. He gets some ₹5000 to ₹10000 because he can promise few extra votes too from his side." I was visibly stunned for a few seconds but then I realised, why would the people who barely make it through the month deny that extra money? It's a vicious cycle. There are people who demand and politicians who can afford to supply. The other side of either of these two groups have no choice but to fall in line lest they either lose getting that extra money or the votes.
Few other people informed me that the people in the village don't appreciate a person from the apartment winning and vice versa. The general reasoning is that the other side doesn't understand their problems and the candidates play into this fear to win votes. By the end of the day I had also witnessed a tussle between two political groups at the entrance of the polling booth which apparently started when one of them raised a slogan to ask for votes. On the way home, I couldn't help but think about how nuanced and complex all of these issues are. Nobody placed the entire community ahead of their smaller groups. The people took advantage of the fact that politicians will do anything during this time and the politicians took advantage of the fact that there was an underlying tension between the two groups. Now, I always knew that politicians play this card on all levels but to actually witness first hand how it works and how unfair it is, is something entirely different.
The Election Commission can certainly not be omnipresent to keep a check on this. Furthermore, detection and/or reporting of this is next to rare. How do you then address all of this? Maybe there's a consensus at the top layer of parties but how much of it trickles down to the person sitting at that desk on the day of polling or the person who distributes the brochures to campaign or the person who speaks to people asking for votes. Nobody will ever notice or even ask if a random person in a random town pays a random person some money to vote. The top layer of the parties may not even be aware of something like this and even if they are, what can they do about it? Suspend those candidates? Who will replace? What's the guarantee that he/she too would not do this? And if he/she doesn't then who's to say that the supporters will not demand for it?
If the stakes at just a Panchayat level were this high then I can only imagine on higher levels. Who is to blame here? Who is the victim and who is the offender? Can it even be separated as black and white so easily? Whatever maybe the case, all I know right now is that no matter who wins at this Panchayat elections, the status quo will remain and the drama will unfold once again in a few years!
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