A truly aware voter exercises her franchise with her ears, eyes and mind open. A loyal voter is taken for granted by the politicians. (PTI Photo)
If a politician is not loyal, it can harm that individual’s prospects. In contrast, when a voter is loyal, it is detrimental to society. We often use the term “informed voter”, but an informed voter is not just a citizen who votes.
A truly aware voter exercises her franchise with her ears, eyes and mind open. A loyal voter is taken for granted by the politicians. She is met with political complacency.
Politicians can almost always gauge what image needs to be projected to loyal voters to ensure that they do not see the truth, the facts. This can result in citizens causing immense harm to themselves and most importantly, to future generations.
This applies to voters of any party, ideology, caste, religion, region, and language. Human beings are known to be “creatures capable of independent thought”. When we are categorised as a “vote bank” based on ideology, caste, religion, region, or language, as voters, we should feel insulted.
Isn’t it disgraceful that a politician is certain that, no matter what they do, the voter will not use her critical faculties? Aren’t we, the voters responsible for politicians holding onto such a notion?
It should concern us if politicians become certain about who will vote for them. The one who understands this is a truly “aware voter”. The voter who reverts to being a “citizen” immediately after casting her vote and does not cling to her choice for the next five years is truly an “aware citizen”.
There’s another important issue that modern times have given rise to: Social media. This technology allows us to publicly express our opinions. Once we have “committed” to a particular political or social view, it takes a lot of courage to retract from it and publicly admit, “I was wrong”. Especially in the online trolling era. As a result, even if the citizen in us realises the truth, the voter inside us hesitates to admit this publicly. The result? We lose the privilege of being a citizen and are trapped by our choices as a voter.
This predicament has made our job more difficult. Let’s be aware of it.
“Don’t take me for granted” is a well-known phrase. In our daily private lives, if someone takes us for granted, it hurts us.
If someone constantly takes us for granted publicly, shouldn’t that be even more disturbing to us?
Those of us who are thinking, “But governments constantly change and so we are aware voters,” should probably check if they are a part of this “we” in the above sentence.
Voting is every citizen’s duty. But being prudent — and not being loyal — is the primary duty of a voter.
Kulkarni is an actor, producer and screenwriter. The article was translated from Marathi by Amol Shaila Suresh
