104. Making voting compulsory is coercion. P S Remesh Chandran

104

Making voting compulsory is coercion

P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
 Article Title Image By Tai Jyun Chang. Graphics: Adobe SP.

It is a question whether Europe is capable of leading India or qualified to be an example to the Orient. Countries like India and China in the Orient have a strict and well organized and disciplined family structure. They bring up their children in their own bed rooms and have strict and unviolatable ethical codes in society. Children are never allowed to decide things for themselves so that wise consul of old people will be behind every decision taken in the society. Marriages are for life there and parents and partners are never left away in their old age. But in the West things are entirely different. It is dogs that parents allow to sleep in their rooms along with them, and children, even toddlers, are not allowed to sleep in parents’ rooms. The psychological chasm developed between them can never be bridged again, so old people are not looked after by their grown up children in the west generally. And no one please feel offended; marriages often last a single season and insecurity among children in great. These are all examples which prove that in matters which directly concern all members of the Indian society, India and other countries in the Orient have their own identity and solutions and West needn’t lead the way. If the western ways were adopted in social and family relations, India would have crumbled far earlier. Then, in the matter of voting, why should we commit ourselves to the foolery of the west? Indian politicians who quote the west are throwing stone a little ahead the dog so that it will invariably hit. They want explanations for making voting compulsory. Some cheap politicians in India are thrilled by the very mention of names such as Australia, Belgium, Holland and they have no feeling at all when the name of India is mentioned. It is in these countries that their loot is stored, not in India. 

Voting is not an obligation the state has a right to expect from citizens, it is just a privilege. Countries in which failed and corrupted peoples’ representatives can never be called back, and what salaries and allowances are to be paid to peoples’ representatives are not decided through a national referendum but decided by the representatives themselves in their assemblage have no right to compel people to compulsorily vote for them. Why should deny the citizen alone his right to decide basic things and decide whether to vote or not? Voting should be a conditional support because there is no guarantee that a government should fulfill their part of the conditions. If the citizen feels that the things promised to him have been achieved, he will certainly vote in an election without the coercion of anyone. But if he feels otherwise, it is his right not to vote, for those who betrayed him or for those who may betray him. What a government with proven anti-people sentiments and motives would really want is to claim that they have full people’s mandate for their actions. Without mandate they have no power, authority, positions, riches, money, and fortune. Therefore it is their need to make voting compulsory, not people’s. If a government does well he can vote. If he feels otherwise, he will not vote. People hate governments with a corrupt and incapability record and will desire to call all representatives back. Will these politicians in Gujarat dare demand such legislation? There is a list of countries here that made voting compulsory. But there is not any list here that shows the names of super power countries that does not allow its citizens a public vote and an election. Are the Gujarat and Indian politicians bold enough to condemn countries such as China for allowing not a vote and election? 

[In response to news article ‘Making voting compulsory in India’ on 06 July 2011]