Why can’t we realize that voting is not optional? I consider it to be the most important duty that a citizen has to discharge towards his/her country. And yet most educated people are complacent about this important duty.

The most common excuse, and it is only an excuse, is that the system is so far gone and it’s not worth the effort. Even assuming that there is merit in that thought, the logical question is – who should stem the tide and make a difference? Are we waiting for someone to come along and miraculously change the system? Can foreigners sweep away corruption and bring in change?

All this, while most of us sit comfortably in our homes on voting day enjoying some recreation or outside seeking entertainment! Of course, these same individuals will be the first to forward petition mails, post comments on networking sites and lament about the sad state of politics in India. Pure armchair activism, which does not cost them anything.

In retail, there is a concept called ‘range rationalization’ which is done to improve sales and margins. Very simply put, at periodic intervals the products are reviewed and those with poor sales and/ or margins are replaced with products giving better results. How does that help? It slowly improves the average and soon the bar is raised.

Similarly, unless we all go out and vote for the best of the worst that we have, how will the standards improve? The change we want to see happen might not happen in this election or the next or even the next. But, it will happen and we along with our children and grand children will experience the effects. Slowly the message will get through and the system will change. Rome was not built in a day. However it would have never been built if everyone had just stood around lamenting!

The other excuse frequently heard is, “I don’t have my voter identification card.” When one starts a career and the company asks for the PAN number, don’t people get it in a day?

When we want a driving license, don’t we bribe or engage a broker and get that immediately?

When we want a passport urgently for that holiday, do we lament that we don’t have it or do we somehow organize it?

What’s the difference between all these documents and the photo identification card? Simply put, we think that there is no immediate or tangible personal benefit to be gained from having one. So, why take the trouble of chasing after the governmental staff to get the card.

I agree that getting the card is nothing short of a miracle nowadays. I have personally experienced the frustration by giving in my picture FOUR times, only to be told afterwards that there is no photo on file. I have repeatedly filled out forms, got them endorsed and submitted them. Yes, it is a pain. But can’t we expend even that effort towards bettering the system?

On the other hand, if there is a new rule that the photo identification card would be the only accepted identity document accepted for transactions, starting from purchase of a vehicle, I am sure that there would be a stampede to get the same. One might even see brokers setting up shop to facilitate “the quick delivery” of these cards.

During the first few rounds of polling, I spoke to a few friends asking them if they had voted. One of them confirmed that he made time to do his civic duty, first thing in the morning before taking a flight to Delhi for work. I felt encouraged by his commitment and patriotism. Unfortunately most others had only excuses!
When will we stop giving excuses and turn up to vote? When will this apathetic attitude change?

India desperately needs your vote. When will we realize that we must be the change we want to see? And one vote – your vote – can actually make a difference.

Reread these preceding three lines and let them sink into your mind.

See you at the polls. Okay?

As the situation escalated, Conrad Hunte, the West Indian opener, climbed up the steep slopes of the stadium roof to rescue the national flags of the two contending countries risking injury to himself.

There was much praise in the media the next day for this brave action.

I however have a different take on Hunte’s action. It seems as if people are guided by more than personal material pursuits. People can exhibit a range of behaviors apart from rationality namely: the irrational, the animal instincts, the emotional, the noble, the savage, the primordial, the creative….it is a long list.

I have heard people say that “it is all about money” as if there can be no motive other than money. This may be true for some people some of the time, but one has to be aware of other motivations that may drive people. In thinking and decision making, we tend to overlook a simple aspect of human behavior – that the other people affected by our thinking and decision-making may not have the same priorities and value systems as ours.

Conrad Hunte could well have raced to the safety of the pavilion to be protected by the police. One saw such scenes in the recent terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Lahore when helicopters landed on the cricket field to carry the team away to safety. No one would have criticized Hunte or for that matter the Sri Lankan team for putting their lives ahead of any other consideration.

But the Hunte action brought home to me the tendency of human beings to be motivated by considerations beyond self interest and material gains. It opened my eyes even then, as a school student, to the many facets of human behavior.

The incidents in Nandigram leading to the Tata Nano car project being shifted from that location to Gujerat reminded me again of our inability to understand what motivates others involved in our decisions.
I was discussing the Nandigram incident with some people at a gathering in the US and later in Mumbai. The recurring opinion was that the Nandigram people do not know what is good for them. How can they spurn job opportunities? This was their chance to escape poverty, for their youngsters to get modern jobs. Look at the pragmatic and sensible Gujeratis. Is it any wonder that Gujerat is a prosperous state, while West Bengal is about as bad as Bihar. It is all about politics. Mamta has misled the people.

It is perhaps true that Mamta scored political points and provoked violence to consolidate her vote bank with an eye on the elections. However it would be simplistic to reduce the issue to this deduction.

What is missing is multidimensional thinking in which we make a creative effort to uncover what motivates others affected by our actions and being willing to accept that what motivates us may not tally with what motivates others.
In Nandigram it is easy for us, middle and upper classes, to say that the people are foolish not to see what is good for them. The assumption is that jobs and money are what is good for them simply because these are good for us. Multiple dimensional thinking might have led them to reason as follows:
No doubt they are poor but maybe they need a way out that is not restricted to offering jobs.
Maybe they are threatened by change in much the same way as are most human beings.
Maybe they are attached to the land since this has been their home for thousands of years.

After all, changes in laws, technology, competition etc unnerve even the Tatas, who however are in a position to adapt to these changes. The poor however are not similarly mentally and emotionally equipped.
There is need for a mechanism to help impoverished people to handle change. To them it is heart breaking, threatening their millennia-old lifestyles and values. Maybe we ought to involve rural leaders, anthropologists, psychologists in understanding how people are affected in this way.
In India more than in any other country, we have seen over thousands of years that anyone entering our scene has had to adapt to us to make himself acceptable. Christianity and Islam have adapted in varying degrees – witness the way Sufism has taken roots in comparison to Salafi Islam. The former is very much in tune with our ethos. Notice how McDonald’s succumbed to the lure of India’s culinary traditions by introducing the McAloo Tikki !

The Tatas had missed these lessons.

I do not deny that material gains are strong motivators even for our rural poor but our approach ought to have been less brazen and more humane. How do we account for the beast and the best in people?
As for the beast in us here is an extract from a recent article on the Gujerat Riots.
“Not content with instigating a mob that burnt down Muslim shops, homes and any Muslims they could get at hand, they inserted a live wire (rod) into the pucca house where 33 Muslim labourers (including women and children) had huddled to escape being burnt to death. Patels in the village said the 2,000 strong mob “knew” BJP legislator Naresh would come later to throw water on the house – which he did- electrocuting its inmates to a pre-planned ghastly end.”

As for the best in us here is an example from my family.
My ten year old niece told her friends that she enjoyed going to bookshops in Chennai, only in my company. When asked why she insisted on my accompanying her she said, “My uncle is an author of three books. He gets a lot of respect in the bookshops. I like that!”
A ten year old kid placing value on respect !
Would we have factored this in any decision involving a ten year old ?

There is no doubt food for thought in this statement about the way we have divided ourselves on the basis of religion, community, linguistic group, region etc. But I have another viewpoint. An Indian’s sense of identity is like an onion with many layers. He has multiple identities.

Thus when there was a discussion on minorities in India, Infosys Chief Mentor, Narayamoorthy said that he was a minority too. As a Kannadiga he was a minority in India; as a literate man he was a minority in a country of illiterates; as an I.T man he was a minority among professionals; as a man who spoke proper English he was a linguistic minority.

He did not add that as a rich man he was a minority in a land of poverty – and as an honest man he was in a minority in public life!

Commenting on the problems faced by minorities, Dr Asghar Ali Engineer, Muslim scholar, engineer and rights activist, remarked that poverty, discrimination and unemployment were faced by people of all communities, not just Muslims .

That to my mind was constructive engagement with a problem.

Another instance of an enlightened approach to such issues can be cited in sports.
I refer to the selection of the Indian cricket team. Years ago when the team was announced there were scathing remarks from experts -in India everybody is an expert in cricket. The allegation was that players from one particular state were favoured. Sandip Patil, former Test player remarked that he did not care if all the players were selected from one state – as long as we won the matches.

That sums up what our attitude ought to be.

It has often happened that way even if we did not notice it.
After the cricket selection controversy abated the team went on to win the series. The people who leveled the allegation of regional favouritism – the experts – were the first to say that this was the ‘best Indian test side in a decade’!
As for the visiting American his forefathers might have found another type of Indian closer home who might have shown total ignorance of India – the Native American Indian.

Later that day when Imzamam-ul-Huq was interviewed by television journalists he prefaced every statement with references to Allah! Katyal’s information is that the Pakistani cricketers spent more time in prayers than in planning the moves to be done on field.

He met one cricketer in person who told him in confidence that he envied Indians,”You guys can walk down a street in Mumbai with a beer bottle in one hand and a girl friend in the other. If I try his is my country I will probably escape if a maulvi sees me doing this, but the girl will be flogged. You Indians are a lucky people.”

Readers may recall that one Pakistani cricketer who was a key player with ambitions to become captain of his team. He was told that “a team that prays together plays together.” If he ever wanted to be made captain he would have to embrace Islam. Sure enough some weeks later this man, Yusuf, sported a long beard , embraced Islam and was made captain.

None less than Imran Khan, considered more modern than many other players, used to exhort his players to treat every match with India as a jehad ! There is a story, considered by many to be true, that when Imran met his then girlfriend Jemima’s father and asked for her hand, the flabbergasted father asked Imran if he wanted her hand because she had shoplifted ! He was thinking about the kind of punishment conservative Islamic countries reserve for even minor offences. Contrary to his liberal image, Imran recently supported the Taliban.

The Taliban launched three suicide attacks in 24 hours inside Pakistan. The US told Pakistan that serious steps would have to be launched to stem that country’s slide to anarchy. Tragically Pakistani spokesmen tell us that the people of that country consider India to be their biggest enemy followed by the US.

The Taliban does not figure in their list.

Contrast this with what cricket means to Indians. Sociologist Ashish Nandy says that there are only 3 sectors in India where meritocracy prevails: Bollywood, the underworld and cricket.
I sent a questionnaire to 75 youngsters in India to find out what cricket meant to them. According to these respondents, the great game stands for: merit, talent, small guys can make it big, religion and caste do not play a significant role, fun and music, celebrations, mela and world class India.

Not one talked of religion.

I once visited my nephew in a Mumbai college hostel. I expected to see in his room what could be found in any teenager’s pad namely dirty laundry, posters of girls, film stars, models and cricketers. What I actually saw amused me. There was a Ganesha photo and beside it was – hold your breath – a poster of Irfan Pathan. Looking at my quizzical face, he smiled and said, “Ganesha is my religous God and Irfan is my secular god.”