Who needs Democracy? Who wants us to vote?
Well, definitely not the King.
The King would rather have us work, pay our taxes, watch TV, and fall asleep. Our slumber suits him. In fact, he takes elaborate pains to put us to sleep, and to keep us asleep. It is for us to keep ourselves awake. It is for us to ask questions and demand answers. It is for us to empower ourselves.
We Indians believe that freedom is our birthright, just because we got it from birth. We believe that freedom is natural. Perhaps we have forgotten that freedom had not come freely to us. We must understand that it is something that must be valued, and protected from the predators. We can not afford to lose it. We can not give it back to the King.
Our basic claim on freedom begins with a realization - that our votes are important, and a conviction - that we must cast our vote. In every election, we must proclaim that we are awake, loudly and clearly. There is nothing idealistic in it. In fact, nothing could be more practical than voting for freedom.
But what if the problem is external to the voter and inherent in the voting process?
Many of us, despite our convictions, are unable to cast our vote. We work at various corners of India, and even abroad. We are often unable to go to the ballet box. The systematic constraint of physical presence of voter systematically keeps many of us away from elections.
We can not go to the ballet box. Can ballet box be brought to us?
Technology can solve some of our problems. And those problems need not be specific to business or industry only. Technology can solve social problems as well. For instance, take the Flush System - the invention of flush system has contributed more to the emancipation of untouchables than all the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi.
I was just wondering if it is possible for the election commission to conduct the elections online. IT has facilitated e-commerce - net banking, online shopping etc. Though all this has been done in the domain of business, there is no reason why the advantage of technology can not be extended to politics. There is no reason why each one of us, who want to vote, can not vote.
How's that?
3 comments:
Hi abhishek,
i thought about this long long time ago; at least 2 serious problems could be:-
1. Unique identification of an individual.
2. Ensuring that the vote received is by that individual for sure.
for example, even if we implement something, the risk controls need to be pretty robust. Also, imagine a simple scene in which there are 4 members in a family. one member knows all the passwords and casts votes on their behalf, how do you ensure, he actually is casting the correct vote? Unless you bring ppl to a common place to vote, it seems hard to solve this. For an analogy, all major paper exams have been replaced by online exams, but people still have to come to a centre.
p.s- congrats on your marriage. you dropped all study plans?
Tanmay (Singapore)
Tanmay
Yes, there can be voting centers in India for those who are staying out of their domiciles. So I can cast my vote from Pune or Hyderabad using my unique voter's identity. There can be adequate arrangements of security at these centers.
For those who live abroad, login id/pwd should be good enough.
ps - Thanks. But technically I am still unmarried. :)
Hope you are doing fine.
- abhi*
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