Keep this under wraps please, but I have decided to share with you a dark secret from my past. I couldn’t find the courage to sign my name on this confession – I guess I’m not brave like those women who have spoken out fearlessly in the #MeToo movement.
I could have posted this on DailyConfession.com, the go-to outlet to spill your guts anonymously, but I picked The Wire because it has “an unparalleled track record of institutional disruption”. There can be no higher recommendation than this one helpfully provided by finance minister Arun Jaitley.
Without further ado…I hope you are ready…Here it comes: I never voted in 2014.
My father has always been a supporter of the Indian National Congress. He was cheering for Rahul Gandhi even during the poor chap’s peak Pappu phase (though he once agreed after two whiskeys a few years ago that Priyanka Gandhi might have been the better choice). Dad loved former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s mild manner and his stellar credentials. He has always been a fan of Sonia Gandhi’s grace and political acumen.
So it came as no surprise when he told us in the summer of 2014 that he had decided to vote for then communications and IT state minister Milind Deora. Back then, voters like dad couldn’t swing the verdict in Deora’s favour. Deora’s core constituency – the same folks who had helped him win this seat in the general elections of 2004 and 2009 – was determined to vote out the Congress.
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In fact, everyone who stood from the Congress lost in Mumbai. The Congress won only two of 48 seats in its worst-ever performance in Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the city and the South Mumbai seat. Arvind Sawant of the Shiv Sena won with 3,74,609 votes against Deora’s 2,46,045 votes. There was an 18% swing in favour of Sawant; nobody cared about the multiple criminal charges against him. Voter turnout actually crossed 50%, a record for somnolent South Mumbai.
My Jesuit-educated, South Mumbai friends and family, mostly from entrepreneurial business families, were among the loudest supporters of Vikas Purush Narendra Modi (with the exception of one distant cousin who supported Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal).
They were unconcerned about Modi’s record in the 2002 Gujarat riots or all the hate speech that was available for anyone to view on YouTube. They said they were voting for the economy. They used fancy phrases like “policy paralysis” to explain their choice. They were eager consumers of Modi’s development story. One of them called me a couple of days ago to say that he would probably go with Modi again. “There is no alternative,” he said, explaining his decision.
Dad got no support from my mother and I when he asked us to vote for the Congress in 2014. Neither of us were fooled by the paper-thin Achhe Din wrapping around Modi’s brand of Hindutva politics. But we were weary of the corruption on display in the second term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Both alternatives were unappealing.
Like 9,573 people in this constituency, my mother voted NOTA (None of the Above) in 2014. This time round, many female voters in Karnataka’s Raichur district exercised the option to click NOTA. They wanted candidates to know that they were upset nobody had done anything about their demand for a liquor ban. In 2019, it’s the BJP that’s using social media to convince its supporters not to vote NOTA. NOTA remains an option for voters who are disillusioned by Modi and yet believe there is no clear alternative to him.
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As for me. I didn’t even vote for the Aam Aadmi Party’s sharp and articulate candidate Meera Sanyal because….well, I have no real excuse. I stayed away and I have never stopped regretting my decision.
I’ve seen enough these past five years. Unemployment is at a 45-year high, the Rafale deal stinks, demonetisation killed small businesses, and many of the flagship schemes launched in Modi’s term haven’t really amounted to anything.
But I’m not voting for a government that will improve the economy (though I’m hoping they will, of course). I’m voting against divisiveness.
I would be naive to believe that there were no bigots before 2014, but Sangh parivar politics unlocked the most hateful part of us that we previously felt embarrassed/guilty about and kept hidden away. Now our elected representatives routinely spread hate and package it as Hindu Pride. Imagine being proud of hate.
We don’t think twice before saying and sharing the most vile things on our family WhatsApp groups. My Muslim, Christian and Parsi friends are terrified of this New India that reeks of divisiveness and seethes with rage. I am terrified too. This is not the inclusive India I imagined for my child.
This time I’m casting my vote against hate. I agree with my childhood buddy. There really is no alternative.
She grew up in the Republic of South Bombay.