Just voting will not help

A great deal has been made about Mumbai folks not coming out to vote in large numbers. Every news channel and newspapers carried headlines that just 47% voters came out to vote in Mumbai considering the anger the people had shown after the terrorist attack on Taj and Oberoi hotel.

I have said this a number of times and I will repeat it again. Just voting will not help us in any way. Please don’t think that I am saying that voting is not important. It is important but not just by itself. The other thing that is important is the choices voters have.

Let me give you an example. John Abrahams, the actor, was asked about the importance of voting. His reply was that it is very important and that one of the issues important to him is that our courts take too long to decide cases. Now you guys also know that this is one thing that I have been talking about. The issue is which party or candidate should John vote for? There is no party or candidate that is even thinking about this issue. Also, most parties will make a general statement that are against corruption but nobody will suggest a list of actions that they will take to remove corruption. So really speaking, John’s vote is a waste as he will not get what he is looking for. This is the reason that I say just making people vote is not going to help.

This is similar to the concept of “Customer is King” in management. Customer always has the right to choose the product he wants to buy but he should have a choice to choose from. Customer was not the king when he had to choose from just Padmini, Standard or Ambassador cars. He became the “King” when the competition provided him with more choices like Honda, Maruti, Toyota, Tatas, Hyundai etc. Now he is in a position to make choice according to his requirements. Now his “right to choose” has more meaning. Similar, John’s “right to vote” will have more meaning when he a choices that fit into his requirement.

I am again making a prediction. We will have a central government which will be no different from the ones that we have seen before. The next 5 years will be business as usual. All the issues that are important to us will remain just our wishes.

I am not being cynical. I am being a realist. There is no point of fooling ourselves.

Avinash Narula