In the defense of the Punjabi voter

Its D – Day in Punjab today, we have our Panchayati elections on, everyone is voting. Enough has been written and said about the voter of Punjab who is selling his vote /himself for a few drinks, ration, suit some cold drinks or the biggest lure of them all money in actual form.

We, the custodians of the future and of the state give long winding explanations about why they should not do this or why they should take the higher ground. Hello, go live with them, not like Rahul baba or like our so-called messiahs.  Has anyone of them ever visited their galis to see where they actually live or the conditions?

Sewer lines are blocked, a lady of the house is pressed for time with clothes overflowing washed only when water flows, food to be made, wondering how to juggle finances to make dal roti. She worries about the bills, the drug addict son who is silently stealing her hidden pin money but she is unable to say anything, fighting with a drunkard frustrated husband and who worries whether she and her daughter will get daily wage in the fields, what with the rains coming early and spoiling everything.

It is easy enough to rattle off those platitudes sitting on your sofa with the non-stop connectivity and air conditioning and then to say where is the progress? I feel that the NRI brethren should come visit us all year long and not surface in hordes flashing the dollars and pounds and upsetting the applecart or should I say the bushel of wheat. Sir, you come, smiling away trying to recreate the time when you left by squandering away money, this creates an illusion of wealth and strikes lines of difference so deep, we reel under it for the rest of the time till you come back like the prodigal son. Work for us, set up projects, educate us, set up rehab places, give us books, rather than distributing alcohol that too vilyayti! Guide the youth, give us pep talks, make the streets safe, help in water treatment plants, set up medical camps, give us glasses to wear, correct our vision.

Live another day in their paradise, and tell me. The voter knows his power; he knows he can demand a value, the only day when the politician actually embraces him with open arms. Promises are meant to be broken, to be crushed, the spirit crushed, A Punjabi still toils the land.

If Punjab to you is a place where the spirit is dead, well you haven’t seen the rest of the country.

I know we are the backbone of the country; at least you don’t defeat us.