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    Election

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    mayurpjani
    1. The author describes their experience serving election duty in a remote village in Gujarat during the 2014 Indian general election. 2. They observed many villagers, especially women, voting without understanding who or what they were voting for, simply pressing whichever button was closest to their finger. 3. This contrasted sharply with social media posts from urban Indians proudly displaying their inked fingers and statuses about voting, showing a disconnect between engaged social media users and unaware rural voters.

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    Election

    Uploaded by

    mayurpjani
    43 views4 pages
    1. The author describes their experience serving election duty in a remote village in Gujarat during the 2014 Indian general election. 2. They observed many villagers, especially women, voting without understanding who or what they were voting for, simply pressing whichever button was closest to their finger. 3. This contrasted sharply with social media posts from urban Indians proudly displaying their inked fingers and statuses about voting, showing a disconnect between engaged social media users and unaware rural voters.

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    1. The author describes their experience serving election duty in a remote village in Gujarat during the 2014 Indian general election. 2. They observed many villagers, especially women, voting without understanding who or what they were voting for, simply pressing whichever button was closest to their finger. 3. This contrasted sharply with social media posts from urban Indians proudly displaying their inked fingers and statuses about voting, showing a disconnect between engaged social media users and unaware rural voters.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    43 views4 pages

    Election

    Uploaded by

    mayurpjani
    1. The author describes their experience serving election duty in a remote village in Gujarat during the 2014 Indian general election. 2. They observed many villagers, especially women, voting without understanding who or what they were voting for, simply pressing whichever button was closest to their finger. 3. This contrasted sharply with social media posts from urban Indians proudly displaying their inked fingers and statuses about voting, showing a disconnect between engaged social media users and unaware rural voters.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    On Election Duty

    Lok - Sabha 2014 Election has been unique & historical in its own way. It has been
    so

    interesting because of the increase in reach of Communication mediums, the social


    media

    and the 3rd World Parties (Which I had already mentioned in my earlier Post)
    joining the

    race along with the 2 traditional players. This Election has been unique also
    because

    this time at least India (Not Bharat) knows what it wants and it looks like finally
    the

    Political Parties have realised that the old formula of divide and Rule on the
    basis of

    Caste and religion is now not accurate and eventually they have started talking
    about the

    Statistics and models which actually should be the way to Contest in a healthy way.

    However, most of the Bharat is still like a poor and innocent Manoj Kumar of
    bollywood

    movies and depends more on the grace of God than the policies endorsed by different

    governments.

    By the way what actually provoked me to come back and write after a break of almost
    15

    months is the very special experience which I had this year during the Lok-sabha
    elections

    in Vadodara (Gujarat) which has already been in lime light due to the candidature
    of Modi

    from the constituency.

    Though I had never cast my vote in any Lok-Sabha election earlier, I got an order
    to go

    on Election Duty as Asstt. Preciding Officer.

    I got posted in a small village called Merakuva in Savli Taluka. Though Google Maps
    helped

    me a bit to reach the first location i.e. Savli Taluka Seva Sadan Kacheri from
    where i

    along with 3 other men and a lady had to collect our EVM and other documents for
    our Poll

    Booth but it failed to locate my final destination which helped me realise that
    still

    there is an area of improvement for Google too! We had to reach Merakuva in GSRTC's

    bus which are good enough to travel. Also thanks to the Administration of Gujarat
    Govt.

    because even though it was a remote location and there was only a single lane road
    but it

    was a pakka road throughout. The road was so narrow that the bushes were
    infiltrating

    through the windows of our bus and had there been some other bus coming from the
    front,

    there was no way out to give pass . The only solution in that case would be a
    compromise

    by one of the buses to go in reverse gear for about 5-6 kms!

    Election duty is the only day when a Government Servant realises the efforts a
    Sales agent

    makes in order to sale his product from Door to door. Though you are not required
    to sale

    any product over here but the conditions are quite tough because of the lack of

    facilities; even the basic ones like food and shelter. You are supposed to stay in
    a

    classroom of a Govt. school, with no beddings or food provided by the Govt. But
    thanks to

    the culture of "Atithi Devo Bhava" which is still followed in Bharat as compared to

    "Atithi tum kab jaoge" in India! It is possible to survive without any facility in
    such

    remote and totally unknown area only because of the open hearts of the people
    living in

    this category of India.

    One the judgement day, as the clock struck 7, people from the village and other
    nearby

    villages started coming to vote. What was surprising to see was that women, most of
    them

    hiding their face in their ghungat, who dont even know how to sign and might not
    have gone

    out on a trip for themselves, took out time and turned up to the booth. They didnt
    even
    knew whom to vote and how to vote. Most of them had to be ultimately instructed by
    us to

    press any of the "bhura (blue) buttons" and they just buried their finger on the
    button

    which they found nearest to their finger. A second instruction had to be given
    again to

    remove their finger from the button. A childish happiness came instantaniously as
    soon as

    they pressed the button and then they run away from the room with shy. Trust me
    this was

    the case with most of the villagers irrespective of gender. On the other hand, I
    was

    watching Inked Finger display pics replacing the selfies in Facebook and Whatsapp
    and most

    of the friends puttinh their status like : "Voted for India", "Modified" etc. Now
    this was

    an amazing contrast which I encountered. I was sitting in a part where people were
    not

    even knowing whom and why they were voting. They had their issues like un-
    employement,

    poverty but they were happy enough and contended. They were not complaining to
    anyone.

    They didn't have demands in their eyes. They didnt come to vote for change. They
    were not

    showing off their fingers on Fb and WhatsApp. They just came may be because some
    party

    agent might have dragged them there or may be they were excited to see a machine
    which

    gives a beep sound on pressing a Bhura button. On the other side on my so smart
    phone I

    was constantly getting updates of different fingers painted blue with a proud
    status

    "Voted for this and that". Some of them claiming the winning chances of their
    favourite

    candidate and white wash chances of the other. They didn't even know that next day
    or the

    other when media will analyse the Polling data and will see the number of votes
    higher in

    NOTA or to some totally weak candidate, media will start creating an image that
    there has
    been a shift in the mind of people, but actually the problem is that the unexpected

    variation in the statistics represents these thousands of Indian voters who are not

    literate about the Polling or rather they are not bothered enough by the political
    parties and that is because

    they are not in the main stream social media and therefore it is hard enough to
    change

    their mind and bring them to your side. Whereas the smarter India can easily be
    won by

    putting some fancy meme on some social networking website and making it viral.
    Crores and

    Crores of money is spent in advertisements but yet people are so illiterate towards

    Polling. How and Why ? What is the target audience of various advertisments
    broadcasted in

    all the meium of communication ? Is it the India which already is so active in the

    social media that it automatically decides its vote after believing what it is made
    to see

    or the India which is still kept in dark for no reason. I think there should be a
    change and the change should be in order to connect this 2 states of
    a Single country
    Jai Hind

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