Indian voter is suffering from Battered Voter Syndrome

I think we in India are all suffering from Battered Voter Syndrome (BVS) which similar to the battered person syndrome or the battered woman or battered wife syndrome.

Simply put, a battered person syndrome (BPS) refers to any person who in spite of continuous physical abuse by a partner refuses to leave the partner. The continuous physical abuse makes the person depressed and/or incapable of taking any independent decision or action to leave the partner and avoid the abuse. The battered person may leave the abusive partner at times but returns to be abused by the partner willingly and with little or no convincing. Whenever the battered person tries to leave the abusive partner, the abusive partner makes false promises to improve his behaviour to convince the battered person to come back. Battered person believes the abusive partner and comes back to find that nothing has changed. The battered person also refuses help and may even get aggressive towards the person offering help.

The behavior of guards and inmates in the prisons offers an analogy which can explain the BPS syndrome. The prison guards often treat the prisoners erratically. Sometimes they treat the inmates with kindness by offering food, shelter and relief from labor while at other times they resort to cruelty which includes beating, solitary confinement and starvation. The prisoners know they have no choice but to accept what is offered to them. The prisnors cannot prevent cruelty or earn kindness. Such a situation results in many prisoners giving up and becoming indifferent to cruelty like beatings and starvation inflicted upon them. They stop caring and accept whatever is dished out to them.

You must be thinking what does BPS has to do with you and me? A lot, if you ask me. I believe all the eligible voters in this country are suffering from a similar psychological condition which I call Battered Voter Syndrome (BVS). Let me explain.

We, the citizens of this country, have been abused repeatedly for years by the politicians and the political parties like Congress, BJP, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, AIDMK, DMK, BJD, Lok Dal and others. Just like the prison guards, they inflict cruelty on us by not providing adequate electricity, water, infrastructure and safety. They inflict death upon us by not maintaining proper law and order. They cause financial pain upon us by increasing taxes and supporting corruption. Sometimes they also show kindness by waiving our loans, building a few flyovers and constructing a metro system. But just like the prisoners, we have no control over when we will be subjected to kindness or when we will be subjected to cruelty. As such, all of us have become depressed (I know I have) and don’t care anymore as to what the politicians do. We have decided to accept our fate and there is no will to fight for ourselves.

Just like the abusive partner, the politicians make false promises to us everytime before the elections and convince us to vote. Based on their promises, we again vote for the politicians and the cycle of abuse continues. We believe abusive politician’s promises knowing very well that they have made similar promises before and broken them. However, just like the battered persons, we the battered voter is incapable of taking a decision to get out of the abusive relationship.

Just like the prisoners sometimes who revolt and even try to escape, we have also raised our voices but we know nothing will change. We have given up. For instance, after the Mumbai terror attack we raised our voices and even took out rallies but the anger has died down. We know we cannot do anything.

We have an escape route available to us, that is, we can vote against the corrupt and criminal politicians at the time of elections but we don’t do it. Just like the battered person or the battered woman or the battered wife, we cannot break ties with our abusers, the politicians. We keep electing the same group of people as we have become incapable of taking independent decisions.

If you remember, we did not even vote to elect Dr. Manmohan Singh, our current Prime Minister, when he stood for elections from Delhi about 8 years ago. Dr. Manmohan Singh was considered one of the most honest and effective politicians at that time. As Finance Minister, he had shown his capabilities but we the voter of this country didn’t care. We did not want to get out of the abusive relationship that we in just like the battered person or the battered woman or the battered wife.

Now I have again given a suggestion to you, the battered voters in this country, to get out of this abusive relationship and vote for anyone but the abusive politicians. I am suggesting that they vote for the unknown independent candidates or the unknown candidates representing unknown organizations or groups. But if I understand the Battered Voter Syndrome right most of you will continue to vote to be in the current abusive relationship.

However, I have hope. There are a number of people who have been able to successfully get out of the abusive relationship. I know some of you will do it this time at the time of the Lok Sabha Elections 2009.

Avinash Narula