The political nursery

 

It was a hornet’s nest unleashed on us with the announcement of elections for the village panchayat, the village level governing body. Sarpanch elections have acquired such seriousness as to hold the entire village by throat and give it a very serious shake. The atmosphere is clouded with posters, pamphlets, banners and fliers, so many of them as we didn’t even see in parliamentary elections during our childhood. Politics is a lucrative career, in every sense of the term. It’s the biggest key to empowerment.

Most of the power aspirants have little clue about what is to be filled up in the nomination form even though these are in Hindi these days. So a big task awaits me. They appear on the edge of life, so much seriousness about the forms. God forbid if there is some mistake and it might get rejected. So they trust the bookish guy in the village. The form is almost an intimidating booklet with so many instructions and clauses. ‘It left my head spinning,’ one of them looked very sad.

I peer nervously at the form booklet. There are many pages devoted to the ongoing and past skirmishes with law: a record of petty as well as solid falling off the legal ladder. So the government of India fully understands that the contestants will have lots of FIRs, court cases and complaints against them.

But I felt further cut down to even smaller academic size the moment I reached the column for academic qualifications of the candidate. It was just one line at the end of the page, almost inconsequential. By chance the printing ink was very light here to make it even more insignificant item of little concern. So the government knows that the candidates will have just as much academic record as to fill up merely a half line at the end of a page in the form.

Sarpanch elections have acquired massive proportions. Campaigning has become unbelievably expensive. Lots of cash is also distributed among the poor voters. They even have loudspeakers mounted on E-rickshaws proclaiming the credentials of a candidate who would make it a Ramrajya with clean governance. One candidate spent one crore rupees. He did a lot of charity work as well. Many ineligible bachelors were lucky to get brides with the kindness and connections of this candidate. He took large groups of villagers for fully-sponsored pilgrimages as well. He raised a whirlwind with his tireless activities. Then his clever election committee built a narrative that he has spent each penny in his pocket and will commit suicide if he lost the elections. There was a sympathy wave and he won handsomely.