Dear Democracy, We Live to Fight for You Another Day, No Thanks to News Channels

Mangaluru: Voters wait to cast their vote for the biennial Member of Legislative Council (MLC) elections, in Mangaluru, Karnataka, Monday, June 3, 2024.

(Photo: PTI)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition is set to form the Union government for a third consecutive term. However, far from the cacophony of BJP leaders and compromised news houses with respect to 'abki baar 400 paar', it did not win anywhere close to 400 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

It is the first time that Modi will lead a national government, which is truly a coalition government, and where the demands of coalition partners will be more than simply suggestions. 

However, the biggest news is the resurgence of the Indian opposition. It has managed to regain its place in the Indian parliament and will hopefully be more vocal as well as capable of putting an end to the BJP’s 10-year-old practice of pushing bills through Parliament with minimal discussion. The Indian National Congress (INC) which had been limited to 52 seats in 2019, has now won close to 100.

The INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc, which includes the INC but also regional parties including the Aam Aadmi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and others, has managed to win close to 230 seats.

Political theorists will spend many days, months and pages analysing how the opposition parties strategised their messaging and targeted campaigning, but I want you to focus on yourself — the voter. 

Coming Out of the Noise

As a voter, you have had to find your way out of the overwhelming amount of noise coming in from all sides. The pitch of this noise only increased and became more intense as the elections approached. From your local leaders asking you to vote in the name of your religion or in the name of a demigod who claims to not be a biological but a divine person; to the big national leaders who tried to strike fear in your hearts, you had to find your way out. You knew it made no sense.

Television news channels were the loudest of them all. They tried to cover up their compromised position through sophisticated language, although some didn’t even go through that effort.

The corporate greed that runs as an undercurrent throughout the structure of these compromised “news” channels was hard to identify, but you did it. You rejected the cries of nearly insane “journalists” who tried to push propaganda in the name of information, who tried to push falsehood in the name of exclusive stories, and who tried to push you into a communally divisive society benefiting only the wealthiest in the name of “amrit kaal”.  

Becoming Aware and Staying Aware

In this age of misinformation, all kinds of incorrect trivia flew into our algorithms on social media and search engines. We were constantly being subject to overwhelming quantities of misinformation. Some of this misinformation was coming directly from the mouths of our leaders who would wake up the next day and refuse to accept that they said something that bizarre! There was even more misinformation coming from WhatsApp forwards, Instagram reels, hateful Twitter accounts, and TRP-hungry news channels and journalists.

All of this was being done just so that you and I would not become aware of all that the government had done wrong. The government has done enough promotion about all the good things it has done for the people (of which there are many), and they have left no room for anybody else to blow their trumpet (so I will not). But the things that they thought you and I would not agree with, they did not want us to know.

From the complexities of the electoral bonds scheme (which I assume some of our national leaders would themselves not be aware of) to the true nature of the PM-CARES Fund to which a lot of us donated so generously in a time of scarcity; from the dubious methods employed to topple democratically elected state governments to the deficit in accountability and responsibility in the Office of the Governor to the state that they are serving (and so much more) – they did not want you to be aware, but you found a way to be aware.

When houses were being bulldozed, religious minorities were being lynched, Dalits were being beaten up and those who physically and sexually abused women found themselves comfortable embraced in political impunity, it was a difficult task to become aware. It is a true testament to the revolutionary capabilities of the Indian population that they would find avenues of information and use that information to exercise their right to vote even when so many were either disenfranchised through “clerical mistakes” or were being refused their right to vote on flimsy grounds.

And when falsity was being peddled out by the hour, there were very few news outlets that continued to stay true to the nobility of their profession and reported the truth in the face of threats of action by regulatory and other agencies.

In this atmosphere, staying aware was also a challenge. The overflow of religious and caste-based chants would have made it difficult to stay focused on the issues that truly matter, and that list includes neither religion nor caste. So, it is worth patting your backs that you were able to take the conversation back from babri talas, mangalsutras and mujras to unemployment, healthcare, education and to a limited extent climate consciousness. But you did it. 

Celebrate Today, Question Again Tomorrow

Regardless of which political party you voted for in these elections, there is a reason for you to celebrate today. If you voted for the ruling NDA alliance, congratulations. the folks you voted for are going to form a government. If you voted for the INDIA bloc, congratulations: you've succeeded in giving India back a robust opposition that will hopefully make the government more accountable in its law-making function. 

However, when the celebrations subside and you wake up tomorrow morning, do not forget you still have the duty to question your elected representative, regardless of whichever alliance they are a part of, the ruling or the opposition.

If your elected representative is part of the ruling alliance, it is incumbent upon you to ensure that they stay true to the ideals and ideas that they professed in their manifesto and that they constantly work towards improving, not just your personal standard of living, but the standard of living of all your fellow country persons.

On the other hand, if your elected representative has become part of the opposition alliance, make sure that they stay on their toes and are constantly vigilant of what the government is doing both in the parliament and outside. It is still your duty to make sure that these opposition members keep their personal ambitions of cabinet positions and perks aside and stay true to their promise to you, which was to give a voice to your concerns on a national platform.

My fellow citizens, you have all (without exception) done a brilliant job, and no thanks are due to the “news channels” which claim to keep you informed or “sabse aage”.

In the coming months and years, there will be many instances where you will have the opportunity to write to your elected representative to support or oppose a certain bill proposed by the government in the parliament. Use your voice to ensure that your elected representative hears you. Because if they do not listen to you, they will not be able to compel the rest of the nation to listen to you.  

(The author teaches Constitutional Law at Jindal Global Law School, is a visiting faculty at NLSIU, Bangalore and a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Constitutional Law Studies. He can be reached at [e-mail]. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)