Let Kerala set the direction for the country
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Kerala, along with some other states, is heading to the polling booths tomorrow, Friday to elect 20 representatives of the state to the 18th Lok Sabha. Public campaigns have reached their feverish end. Whatever the political parties and leaders wanted to say, they have said at decibels enough to pierce the eardrum. They were also eager to cover up whatever they didn't want people to remember. Thus, the election scene became highly eventful with accusations, counter-accusations and non-stop controversies. After all the shenanigans, the voters have to take a firm decision on by whom and how they wish the country to be ruled for the next five years, remembering what the ruling class wanted to hide and not getting carried away with their promises.
This election is extremely important for the country and its citizens. Voters should enter the polling booth tomorrow with answers to some fundamental questions. Should India move towards a bright future, or into the abyss of mistrust and hatred? Are the Indians going to hand over to the next generation a country full of darkness of a dictatorship based on lies? Or an open land built on the core principle of coexistence and justice? The fact that the same people who have been in power for the past ten years are leading the rampant spread of hatred speaks of the depth of the tragedy the country has fallen into. It goes without saying that the Prime Minister, who forgets about Manipur, which was in the midst of communal riots, and repeats the myths of Hindutva textbooks about Muslims, represents the hateful side. If the country is not able, even through this election, to neutralize the communal politics which only raises the cries of hatred by silencing the hymns of pluralism that India has imparted to the world, then we will not even have the right to blame the fate in this election.
Economic equality is at its peak. Forty percent of the country's resources are in the hands of the top three percent. A country blessed with youth is facing alarming unemployment due to flawed economic policies. The state's social discrimination and alienation have become routine in its welfare schemes and legislation. Democratic institutions have been rendered passive or the apparatus of the state. The country's jails are now a place to lock up critics of the regime. Today's democracy is a tyranny where elected officials and candidates are bought off. Even the use of votes becomes absurd and meaningless, which thus sounds the death knell of people's power. Citizenship is the responsible use of the right to vote to reclaim democracy in a complex situation where the responsibility of citizens has been reduced to the absolute right to vote, and even that is threatened with subversion. In this situation,exercising the franchise is a mandatory duty of citizens as the country faces a critical decade. Shirking that responsibility or absconding from it is an impermissible offence. Certainly, this poll is also a declaration of position. May Kerala be able to embrace an India of diversity and equality. There is no greater democratic victory for the politics of hate than to ensure that Kerala has no representation in the politics of hate. Malayalees cannot have more self-esteem than achieving this end. The political energy it pumps will surely rejuvenate the country.
The merchants of hatred have started a suffocating style of governance which is destroying the country, its cultural diversity, socio-communal unity and strangling states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu as enemies. It was a revenge for constantly rejecting the rants of spiteful falsehoods. There is no more precious opportunity than this to prove that the real Kerala is not a lie on the reels. Not only should the forces of hatred not be allowed to open the account, but the vote percentage collected in the past by spreading lies should be reduced too. This general election should show the right direction for the country to prove once again that Kerala is a bastion of humanity that cannot be eroded by the tsunami of falsehoods. For the sake of democratic values and setting aside religious, communal and political pressures, let this verdict go with the life aspirations of the people of the country.
