'If it's May it must be the vacation' was a favourite refrain in my schooldays, but that can hardly be proffered as the reason for the disappointingly low turn-out of voters across the country, and particularly in Mumbai last week. Kids are (and rightly so) the main concern of parents, but it does not require a sudden burst of inspiration like Archimedes to discover that voting and vacation are not mutually exclusive. Exercising the most significant process in a democracy surely does not need a Eureka moment.
May, of course, is also a cruelly hot month in India, so holding elections at this time of the year was not the brightest piece of thinking since Einstein had worked out that e=mc2. And yet what happened to the good old umbrella? Or the exhortations from sundry role models that those who don't vote are...well, idiots? Or the great fervour post 26/11 which was to drive these elections in Mumbai?
That fateful Thursday I woke up early, checked to see if the middle finger of my left hand was in fine fettle, caught some of the early action on television from hyperventilating reporters at polling stations across the city, did not pay too much attention to what was really only a trickle of voters, went and went out to correct that early imbalance with my vote.
In hindsight, of course, this was shown to be colossal hogwash. All expectations of a revitalised electorate that would provide a new direction to Indian democracy were proved to be unfounded; the figment of unsubstantiated theories. But let me attempt some answers why this may have happened.
a) Perhaps India is in surreal zone, living out life for television, a la the Truman Show. So many issues seem to be solely for the benefit of TV cameras. College principals have their faces blackened (often for trite reasons) in front of a TV cameras. Ditto if young girls and boys have to be taught a lesson for going to discotheques, and almost ditto if shoes have to be hurled at politicians. Was the sense of anger and outrage, manifest by congregation of thousands at the Gateway of India post 26/11 then just a way of getting prime TV time one wonders?
b) It is possible too, however, that sustained terror attacks induced a sense of déjà vu: Shortly after 26/11 came the attack against the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, and after that the attack on a police training school in Lahore. This could have diluted the impact of the terror attack on Mumbai, especially on first-time voters, who were expected to make the most difference in these elections.
c) Sundry vote banks abstained because they were confused, or were aggrieved and wanted to teach one or the other party a lesson.
d) Did the media get it all wrong? Chasing a big story has become so vital for survival that virtues of ground level reporting and analysis have been cast aside. So, while there were great stories leading up to the elections, we missed the woods for the trees.
e) Just maybe, as that clumsy cliché goes, we are like that only. All said and done, the middle finger of my left hand is not displaying quite the same fine form of that fateful Thursday. Indeed, there seems to be a discernible quiver every time I check the ink spot, almost as if it is rebuking me with a petulant 'Up Yours' for being so cocksure.