My Vote: My Say?

Come May, and the world’s largest democracy and the second most populous country in the world will go to the poll for the General Parliamentary Election. It will be a chance for the billion people of India to have their say in the governance –or at least in principle.

I remember often seeing this TV commercial where it says ‘if you don’t vote on Election Day, then you are sleeping and you have no right to complain’. I want to protest that complaining is what I did best, but I definitely don’t want to be caught sleeping even though I love sleeping.

So, I got to thinking if I were given the chance to have my say be actually turned into action, what would I say? There would be many things I would want to say. As a Christian, as a Tribal, as a Minority Community, as a Student and as a Citizen, everything about me is crying out to be heard –that’s also the one reason why I blog in the first place!

But I need to be realistic and stop nursing false hope since I live in a world called reality. And that left me with very little to say. During Delhi’s Assembly election last year, a friend joked that if someone put up a donkey as a candidate, she would rather vote that donkey, and I remember saying ‘amen’ to that.

As a Christian, I am furious (what an irony) that when Hindu mobs run amok ransacking and burning churches in Karnataka; torching the houses and mercilessly killing poor dalit Christians in Orissa; not a single Christian Minister or MP said a single word! We have enough prominent political figures (I can quickly count 2 Union Minister and about 25 - 30 MPs) who chose to remains silent –how orphaned we felt! Amidst all that, all the Prime Minister can do was to come out and lambast organized religion as a whole! Misinterpreted Liberalism… what a shame!

This election too, we will not have much choice like in the past. You can chose an individual who you think might be sensible, once elected he/she will sacrifice everything for the sake of his/her party’s image or as they say. You vote for a party, and they will remain a mute spectator while your house and church are burned!

But if you are a Dalit-Christian, it’s worse. You have to choose between your religion and your identity. Once you become a Christian, you lost your dalit identity but that doesn’t mean you will enjoy social acceptance. Apart from that, no matter how poor or backward you are, you will have to fight with the general people for every field of opportunity.

If you happened to belong to any of the poor minority communities, be very threatened. Whenever those political parties or the newly launched one needed some media attention, they will come to attack you, massacre you and no one will speak-up for you. If you dared even as to raise a protest, they will throw you in jail while those mobs will go scot-free. That’s what it means to be a minority in India and I don’t think this election will change anything.

If you are a tribal, all that you can do is to look-up to the sky where the non-tribals’ built their castles –waiting for those few scraps of government’s welfare schemes to fall-off off their table. We don’t want those scraps of welfare schemes, but a share in the overall development of the much proclaimed India’s booming economy.

As a marginalize tribal, I want inclusion in the progress of the country. When India go overboard claiming itself to be the world largest democracy, the armed forces continue to have unlimited powers in the North-eastern states of India subduing its tribals inhabitants into military rules and making them a perpetual refugees in the land of their forefathers.

As a student, I want better educational infrastructure and support –at par with those private institutions’. I also want an inclusive education where we are not forced to study the history of only certain section or part of the country or some socialist propaganda. I want quality education upon which one can build a life and not an education that put emphasis on pass-fail ratio or obtaining degree/certificate alone.

As a citizen, I want a government that’s not afraid to speak up the truth and stand up for the right things without fear of losing their vote-banks. I want a government that don’t emphasize on gender alone, or class, caste or race. I want a safer country where each one of us can roam free without the fear of being attacked because of your facial feature, religion, gender, caste, class or race.

There are many more that I want or don’t want, and looking at the leading political parties and their prospective candidates, it seems that I’m only wasting my time listing my wants or don’t wants. So I come to the question ‘should I still cast my vote this coming election’.

No, I don’t believe that the single vote I hold can make a difference among a billion people, and yes, I’m a pessimist because I have enough reasons to be disappointed, so this coming election, I’m going to stay at home and enjoy the holiday. It’s just not worth voting for someone who dared not to stand-up for his/her own people/religion or for that matter, speak out against injustice.

tags: zo, zomi, zogam, lamka

Life In A City

Talking in phone with my little niece back home, she reminds me of how much I fancied living in a big city when I was her age. I saw the lights, the glitters and the glamour in those films and convince myself to believe living in a city would guarantee them all. What a disappointment!

In those days, if I were told that there are frequent power-cuts in big cities like Delhi or Bombay or that the roads are filled with pot-holes, I would shake my head in dispassionate unbelief. And, how would I believe that I would spent a large chunk of my hard-earned money on renting a single room that's more like a dark cave with a single door and a window (if you're lucky)!

Many of us living outside left behind their wives/husbands; children and or parents back at home. I don't want to imagine what those separated couples must be undergoing, but I can speak for myself and assert that it's not easy either –being single, working and living in a city.

If you are lucky enough to get Sunday off from your work, it's the only day when you can meet people of your kind -that too, only if the church is within a reasonable distance. That Sunday church service could be your only 'social life' for the week unless you are one of those crows who are comfortable enough in their fake peacock's feather.

On the occasional time you went to church, you might even saw someone who fasten you heart beat and you may stole many quick glances, but that's as far as you would go, because for the next six days, you would be pre-occupied with your work and you would even hardly have the time to think about her/him.

You woke up in the morning, clean yourself, have breakfast, pack you lunch and off you went to spent the next hour commuting to your work place. You returned home in the evening buying grocery on your way, tidy yourself up, prepare and have dinner, watch a little bit of TV and you dozed off. You repeated the same pattern the next day, six days a week, and will continue to do so in the future. That’s life in the city.

If you are lucky enough to have someone within the neighborhood, you'll at least have someone to chat with, or if your family or friends have telephone, you can chat away for something about your monotonous/redundant life bearing in mind your fast running phone bill. Maintaining a relationship is expensive, it not only consumes time, but also your money.

Life in a city provides many 'pros' and as much 'cons', just like in the rural areas. Big cities offer mostly materialistic things, and to enjoy them one needs to have a deep pocket, and most of us can afford that. While at home, what we are being offered are mostly aesthetic like clean air, water & environment, love, friendships and so on; the absence of which can make life pretty scary...

May be that's the reason why the word 'home' sounds so heart-warming. The mere thought of 'home' can heal you of the day's fatigue, it can relax you from the tension boiling inside you on over-hearing someone calling you names or making an unnecessary comments about you. The word 'home' can transport you across the seas and the plains and take you to those ranges of hills and mountains where you spent the happy days of your childhood. The word 'home' is transcendental; it’s therapeutic and transforming...

The Problem with Blogging

I hardly have anything to post these days as is quite evident. It’s not that there’s nothing to write about, or neither am I running out of inspiration as some people loved to say, nor not having the time. I have time to write and have stuffs I wanted to write about, but the only thing is, and to be very honest, that I am too lazy to begin with.

It is not that difficult to get something worth a post. Most of my post were written as a message in my mobile phone and saved as ‘draft’ until I got the time to put them in my computer, then I put those pieces of thought together.

But the problem is when you want that post to be of some substance. If I want to write about the inanities of my daily life, I could simply use it as a diary, but my blog definitely is not a diary. But again the brand new diary I gifted myself for New Year is still empty and stands testimony against any excuses that I may have.

There are times when I really am busy and got no time to write, say like last November, I posted a short story that I broke into two pieces. I have been sitting over that story for over two years until I ran out of any thing worth posting which forced me to hastily finish and post it.

The story was raw and unpolished, but I still think it manage to put forth the issue that I had in mind. I always wanted to write something about my family, especially my mother after we all left home, so it was loosely based on our life.

In a way I am glad that I am done with that story, and some part of me wished that something compel me to finish off the many other unfinished writings I have been sitting over for many years.

I have many notepad files containing small piece of thoughts. Some are full length article containing many paragraphs that have to be put together. Some have just the introductory part with/and/or the concluding part. But since I got enough to post for this time, it seems like I’m going to continue sitting over them.

See, it’s not that difficult….

India Inc wants Gujarat Monster as PM

When the leaders of India biggest business houses stood-up to support Narendra Modi as the future Prime Minister of secular India, it sent shockwaves across the minority communities living in India. It just amazes me how short-lived our memories are!

Who can ever forget the merciless massacre of Muslims in Godhra and the persecution of Christians in Dang? If the name Narendra Modi rang a bell, it is because his name is identical with the many innocent bloods shed in Gujarat. If Gujarat prospers, it got nothing to do with him but the people of Gujarat. Narendra Modi only stained the name of Gujarat and India.

But what is more shocking is that respectable people like Tata, Mittal and the Ambanis wanted him to lead the country. Does this mean those Industrialists will support and/or do anything that will only further their interest (and that interest is nothing but profit) without giving any importance to the peace and harmony of India?

The whole thing reminds me of what I once read in the net about how the German Industrialists praised Hitler and his regime before he showed his true colour. Narendra Modi had already showed his true colour, so those Industrialists knew what they were talking about and can be taken as a legitimate threat.

Looking at the present political scenario, it is very unlikely that the BJP will put him up as their Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2009 election, but it is inevitable in 2014 if the BJP happened to lose the next election.

But by proposing the Monster of Gujarat as the Prime Minister of India, India Inc is threatening the minority communities of India, and if you happened to be a minority, be very threatened for that Monster could be your Prime Minister if those peoples with vested interests have their way.