The Idea that drives India

On 15th August 1947, a strange nation started its ‘tryst with destiny’.

There was hardly an iota of homogeneity in its nationals; they spoke myriad languages, had cultures poles apart, and consisted representation of all diverse religions. Not only that, it was left high and dry by its colonial masters.

So the entire world predicted doom, and doom’s day they said was not far away. They waited and predicted, and predicted and waited. But then nothing happened. Actually they missed that an idea was driving that nation; and that was its Democracy.

Thus this new blog is dedicated to the magic called democracy and the means to achieve it, free and fair elections. I know quite a few eyebrows must have been raised by now.

Before my readers put me down with zillion cross questions, I remind them of a quote of Churchill ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried’. And trust me, I cannot agree more.

Democracy has power to smoothen all the folds of the society; it has power to merge different colors of society and mind it, none of them lose their identity. In years of human existence, democracy faced just one strong opponent, Communism, but that too got completely crushed by the fallacy of its own weight.

Now let me come to the phrase ‘free and fair elections’. Its normal to question ‘Are we anyways near that?’ and my answer to that shall be a loud Yes. As an insider to the government machinery, I can say with full confidence that I have never seen a process as efficient as conduct of elections.

The process starts years before any election is due. Voter lists are periodically revised and re-revised. Booth level agents go door to door to confirm who has moved in and who has moved out. All political parties are asked to give their views and objections to the entire process.

When election comes near, almost all other government work comes to a standstill. The letter with mark ‘Election Urgent’ acquires topmost priority.

After each election, the Election commission gets wiser and now they are monitoring at multiple levels. There are government observers, there are agents of all political parties and then there are also some random citizen checks.

So have we become perfect? My answer is no. There are still evils to be tackled; like those of criminalization of politics, politicization of religion, use of money and muscle power etc. But if you feel the sheer magnitude of election operations, you cannot resist but call it magic.

After all, isn’t this the magic that has, and god willing shall, keep India moving.