Ranjona Banerji: Vote now or forever hold your peace

People wait in queue to cast votes at a polling station in Noida during the first phase of Assembly polls for Uttar Pradesh on Saturday PicPTIWith election season on full swing across India you will hear familiar refrains from people It usually has to do with how they hope politics would somehow be different This ldquodifferentrdquo could be some vague idea of ldquocleanerrdquo politics with more accountability or it could be a desire for ldquoleadershiprdquo or it could be the notion that we donrsquot really need a government or that all we need is a strict nanny with a whip to keep us in orderIn India we also say that we wish religion and caste did not matter so much Of course when we say this we mean that we wish people of religions other than ours and castes other than ours should not get more attention than us We interpret any attention paid to other religions and castes as ldquosopsrdquo and we fool ourseshylshyves that life is a level playing field Therefore we usually do not mean ldquoWe wish there was no discrimination on the basis of religion or casterdquoSadly it is often the majority which gets this false idea of persecution Look at America now where sections of the dominant race would like to pretend it has not persecuted others in the past and that there are no reparations to be made and everyone except them is lazy criminallyinclined venal and so on Donald Trump saw that sense of insecurity and most successfully played upon it The other side of this is that those of ldquootherrdquo races religions castes and so on feel further hemmed in and become more dependent on each other shutting out society at largeThere is also an ambivalent feeling towards those less fortunate than us mdash for whatever reasons Like those from other religions and castes people whom life has dealt a harder hand are also undeserving of political attention and ldquosopsrdquo for some of us Life through our own prism makes us inwardlooking and probably a bit miserable since we see ourselves as permanent victimsTherefore is not politics what we make of it rather than what it actually is When we choose a political party or a political direction are we not trying to find solutions to our own insecurities or fears or even occasionally our hopes The same voter who believed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his promise of development now finds that the Prime Minister has spent more time mocking his predecessor and other parties than providing much new development ideas of course apart from the horror of demonetisationThere is a larger core problem here as well What do people really want from government Itrsquos not just about visceral issues like race and religionbased insecurities Itrsquos also about down to earth practical stuff People say they want better roads schools sanitation water supply healthcare they want things to workAnd who provides the answers to these practical problems The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation which goes to the polls this month Much attention is being paid to the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections Big rallies bigger speeches biggest media attention is being offered to the masses Often there are big voter turnouts as wellAnd for municipal elections Last time around I wandered about a couple of Mumbai suburbs in the afternoon on a voting day It was a lovely sunny day with an invigorating breeze Poll attendants and political helpdesks sat out in the sun under the trees chatting Where are the voters I asked them ldquoA few came in the morning and we have been receiving an occasional voter here and thererdquo they repliedThere you have your answer Better roads better sanitation better schools better healthcare coming your way right Yes there is no guarantee that if you vote you will get those things But there is a definite guarantee that if you do not bother if you do not demand accountability if you do not stand up for your rights as a citizen you will get zilchDreams of a ldquostrongrdquo leadership lead to Hitler Mao and Stalin And the improbable promises of Donald TrumpIn the most readable and fascinating book Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind Dr Yuval Noah Harari talks about the human ability to believe in ldquofictionsrdquo which sets us apart Politics is one of our most enduring fictions You might argue it is usVoteRanjona Banerji is a senior journalist You can follow her on Twitter ranjona Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom