An uncle once teased me that at some point in time, the word 'idiot' used to refer to one who does not vote. I'm going to be thirty and have never voted. I did try once. On a typically sweaty Mumbai morning, I diligently queued up at a municipal school to get my voter's ID. As luck would have it, I was fourth from the counter when they shut shop. Since then, laziness and a strong dislike of queues have prevented me from exercising adult franchise.
The recent US primaries and the nomination of prime ministerial candidates in India have made me feel terribly left out. In true spirit of active citizenry, therefore, I decided to voice my opinions. Idiots are people too, and a minority at that, so I wanted to speak on their behalf.
Since politics is about rationalization of one’s preconceived biases, here are my cop-outs for being an idiot.
Sensitivity:
The simpleton narrator in Pu La Deshpande’s Asa Mee Asaamee confesses to being equally convinced by opposing ideologies. This is often true of me. I find myself agreeing with both the Left and the Right on many fundamental issues.
Take capitalism, for instance. It is both ruthlessly opportunistic and (hence?) extremely effective. People fall on the political spectrum depending on which of these two aspects they emphasize. Arundhati Roy’s rhetoric sometimes moves me as much as that of [fill in your favorite libertarian blogger here]. I don’t disagree with either, the respectable word for which position is ‘centrist’, I guess. But ‘centrist’ suggests an equanimity that I am far from. Instead, this confusion disturbs me no end and makes it nearly impossible for me to take sides. It’s a bit like being the dyslexic agnostic insomniac (with due politically correct respect to all of the above) who stays up all night worrying if there is a dog. Besides, one good book is worth a lot more than all political ideologies combined.
Individualism:
Behaviorists must attribute this one to me being the only child. Having no siblings left me with a lot of time that I spent looking out of the window daydreaming. As a result, I am not too big on the communal thing. I have never understood why I must choose or form a clan to belong to, and then defend its every action to death; it is tiresome and evidently dishonest, and yet most political discourse revolves around justifying one’s own group and condemning the other.
It’s not that I don’t have group loyalty; I fire up my communal passion for the Indian cricket team (and the advantage there is that the more we love our team, the more we criticize it), but no political party has seemed that important to me.
I prefer voters who have immediate, self-centered reasons to choose their candidates - like a friend who voted for his local BJP MLA because the guy kept roads in his neighborhood free of potholes. Now there’s a concrete reason. To me, such voters seem less self-deceptive and far more sensible than ideologues.
I read somewhere that more Americans voted for American Idol than for their President. Is it any surprise they did? I mean, if the satisfaction of one’s opinion being counted for something (and that is what most of us are after in democracies) can be had for a musical contest, why vote for a cacophonous one whose outcome will inevitably leave you feeling more powerless?
The only idealistic voter whose convictions I understood (and frankly envied) was another friend who always voted for the Humanist Party in Mumbai- a front floated by working middle class people without big money or campaign. His sagely response to the mockery of my BJP/Congress loyalist friends was, “I know they’ll never win.” This irony made him a tragic hero in my eyes.
Skepticism:
This is perhaps the biggest reason I have never sworn allegiance to any side and it may have something to do with the fact that the first novel I remember reading is Orwell’s Animal Farm. For one thing, I’m not too fond of words with capitalized beginnings-President, Prime Minister, God, names of countries and states, corporate titles, Party, Communism and Capitalism - they seem to beg uncritical reverence.
Another thing that makes me uneasy is people flaunting their pride in some or another purely accidental fact. Are you proud to be [fill in identity of choice]? Well, that’s a moot question if there ever was one. Pride in oneself is best earned. Of course, one can’t discount her birth in a certain place and station in life. In my case, however, that makes me humble, not proud, for I know that I owe much of what I have to where, when and to whom I was born.
Perhaps a better question is if I like being [identity of choice here]. Mostly, yes. In any case, this whole pride thing is just posturing and chest thumping of the sort that our cousins in the animal kingdom indulge in; it’s a pity they don’t have language to give it a righteous spin.Another capitalized word is ‘I’, and I’m too skeptical to take myself so seriously as to passionately advocate anything. Bert Russell comes to the rescue, “I would never die for any cause. What if I am wrong?” These days, however, bookstores and blogs are packed with everything from passionate pleas for one’s own ideology to brazen browbeating of another, and most of them speak in an in your face, doctrinal tone. Skepticism and the humility it brings are no longer in vogue.
These, then, are an idiot’s justifications of his politics: I don’t vote not because I’m uninterested, but because I can’t bring myself to: it’s just not in my constitution.
The human drama in politics fascinates me as much as the next guy, but to my film and fiction fed mind, real politics seems too much like loud theater to suspend my disbelief. To quote Woody Allen, “Life doesn’t imitate art; it imitates bad television.”
Who knows? Someday, this idiot might just wisen up, get off his high horse and get used to voting for the lesser of two evils. My constitution, after all, is open to change. It isn’t spelt with a capital ‘C’.
