VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 279 Date: 29.04.2019
Contents:
1. Modi's Bag Of Dirty Tricks At Play During The Elections
2. Of Poetess Laureates, Bank Of England Governors & Curry & CTM
3. The EVM & Indian Elections
Modi's Bag Of Dirty Tricks At Play During The Elections
Narendra Modi has been trying to use every trick in the book to subvert the rules of the Election Commission relating to campaigning for elections. Thus starting from the Namo web series to Namo TV to Namo biopic to the interview with Akshay Kumar, he has been trying to subvert the regulations and influence the voter every which way. Though the EC has put its foot down, better late than ever, on the web series and declared that Namo TV cannot show political content except for maybe transmitting live the election speeches made by the Prime Minister and delayed the release of the biopic. These have been calculated and calibrated steps by Narendra Modi to take undue advantage and influence the voter much before the election campaign began. He cannot claim innocence and profess that he is not aware of all these methods that were used to promote him in the minds of the people. That would be insulting the intelligence of not only him but the people of India. That as Prime Minister he is using these questionable tactics speaks of his compulsive desire to win the elections at any cost and not following the precept of a level playing ground indicates flaws in his leadership makeup. Apart from that Narendra Modi tends to play naive in some of his statements. Like when the EC asked that the armed forces should not be drawn into the election campaign and incidents like Pulwama and Balakot be avoided, he asked - If farmers deaths can be brought up in elections then why not those of soldiers. This is a matter of debate for the next elections but for the present one when the EC has put out a stricture is it not Modi's duty to follow it being the Prime Minister? Similarly, when the question of Sadhvi Pragya's nomination for the Bhopal seat came up for criticism, he had said that if Malegaon was terror, was the 1984 Sikh killings not terror? If as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi cannot make a distinction between Malegaon and even the Samjhauta Express blasts which were deliberate and planned to kill people and put through with a twisted objective in mind, the Sikh killings in 1984 were the consequence of an emotional upsurge upon the assassination of a sitting Prime Minister. That the 1984 Sikh killings were used by certain people to carry out their personal agendas in playing up to the rulers that be is a completely different matter. Narendra Modi himself is not new to this since the 2002 Gujarat riots were a similar emotional upsurge because of the Godhra carnage in which because of the slaughter of Hindus on the train, hundreds of Muslims were killed. And Modi had at that time allowed the communal mobs to vent their fury across Gujarat for 3-4 days without raising a finger. So by Modi's definition, if this was terror does it not make him an accessory after the fact and thus a terrorist.
Of Poetess Laureates, Bank Of England Governors & Curry & CTM
It was in the papers that Imtiaz Dharker, the mother of the actress Ayesha Dharker, is likely to be named as the Poet Laureate for England following in the footsteps of another lady from whom she will be taking over, who was the first lady to hold the coveted post. I am not sure if Imtiaz is the wife of Anil Dharker from BBY, a literary figure in his own right, controversial also, and which is most likely.
Raghuram Rajan, the noted economist who was our earlier RBI Governor, unceremoniously given the boot last year by not giving him the customary second term extension is No. 2 on the list for the Bank of England Governor post. The pay is £480,000 per year. Who says being an economist means you have to economise on your finances?
For long, curry has been the favourite food of the Brits with CTM - Chicken Tikka Masala topping the list of most ordered food in the UK.
Thus be it culture, be it finance and even food Indians are most likely to control the minds, wallets and stomachs of the British. We can then maybe say that the British Raj has been reversed completely.
The EVM & Indian Elections
The EVM, rightly so, has become the central figure in Indian elections but the unfortunate part is that it has come for a lot of unfair criticism mostly from those that end up losing elections on it being manipulated. The first series of EVM's were made in 1989 by BEL & ECIL who continue to be the present vendors to the Election Commission from a common design. The singular characteristic of the EVM is that it is a stand-alone device with its software resident in an EEPROM, at least for the first series of production. The stand-alone feature makes the machine impervious to being manipulated like if it were connected to the Internet or having wireless connectivity when it could have been tampered with through remote means. If you have to manipulate the EVM now you have to be in possession of the machine which explains why the EC takes so much precautions of the security for the EVM. Again the EEPROM resident software to be manipulated needs the person tampering it firstly, to be in possession of the EVM and then secondly, have an external programming device like an UV (Ultra Violet) Reader and Writer. This complexity is what makes the EVM tamper-proof. A number of political parties have said that nowhere in the world do they use the EVM but in India. The reason for that is that most countries like the US and Europe tried with machines linked to the Internet and with wireless connectivity which fell foul as said earlier of the tamper proof necessity. We therefore need to appreciate our designers at BEL & ECIL who came up with this unique design which has stood the test of time for close to three decades for almost all elections held in India. However, the number of failures of the EVM's in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections is somewhat distressing whether in the Ballot board or Control Unit or with the VVPAT which has brought another dimension to the machine. Like they say the more number of sub-systems you have the more likely are the chances of failure of one or the other. But apart from that fact there seems to be some lacunae in the production quality of the EVM's and then in their subsequent handling by the EC and those involved in conducting the elections. These processes need to be tightened. As for manufacturing quality both vendors have from the first manufacture been rushed for time by the EC and have to take extraordinary steps to meet the deadlines of large volume delivery. These rush-rush delivery stipulations do not allow for quality to be consistently maintained and built-in across the large volume of machines that are put through. Therefore in-process manufacturing methods need to be tightened. As for testing once the EVM's are to be deployed it is more a procedural issue and rigorous testing and an adherence to the testing manual and proper training of staff of both EC and officials that conduct the elections, should address these issues. The problem has been that when the criticism of the usage of EVM's is increasing it is then that the failures have also been increasing. Therefore the EC and both BEL & ECIL need to put their heads together and combat this criticism for a machine that has stood the test of time, as said earlier. There is one other thing about the EVM and that is, we should de-criminalise the fact that you cannot complain about its working after using it. The reason for this is the EVM is a tool of democracy and we should not stifle the voice of the people if they have any problems in using it. The levels of education in India of voters is diverse and illiterate voters may have a genuine grievance while casting their vote though there maybe others who deliberately desire to create nuisance. But even one vote with a genuine grievance should not be disregarded. The EC should take a broader view on this matter and either have the existing rule and publicise it vigorously but not implement it, thus using it as a deterrent. Or have re-polling if the number of complaints seriously affect polling on the election day in the particular booths with a different EVM which will install confidence in the people that democracy really works. This will also enhance the image of Indian democracy.
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