I use to think political parties knew the common man, because they had their ear to the ground and a pluse on the rural man, because however dumb our politicians may be , they have a strong constituency, especially in rural areas.
Recently, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Political party came out with it’s manifesto. To begin with His party is a regional party with a limited presence. It is strong in the state of U.P. For those of you who are ignorant about our country, U.P along with Bihar, M.P & Rajasthan account for roughly 40 % of the country’s total population. So you can imagine how many electoral votes and seats that means.
UP is large; it has the most number of Lok Sabha [parliament] constituencies. So winning in UP is important. UP has a HUGE number of poor, illiterate semi illiterate people. Obviously because the ruling parties have not wanted to do anything about that, in the past 60 years may I add.
In the past people like Mulayam were able to woo illiterate voters in the name of religion and quota based protectionism, and may continue to for a while. However this time he has gone too far. For I think he has misunderstood his target audience.
In his manifesto, he promises to banish English and computers. What a joke.
He needs to understand that his poor rural voter bends backward to get his child admitted to a English medium school, at times pleads, begs and works over time to make enough money to pay for tuitions so his child can ‘cope up’ in an English medium school.
The rural youth want to learn how to operate a computer because it means LIVELIHOOD for him and his family and a visa to get outs of the darkness.
Most of the rural voters will be around the 35 years of age. I wonder whether his manifesto will cut ice.
I know this because I have been busy speaking to what I call the serving class – drivers, maids, daily laborers. I know this because I too originate from a dark corner which no one would bother to acknowledge, and I know what people back in my village are talking about right now.
All I’m wondering is that out of the total number of people living in the darkness, how many will bother to think about that stupid manifesto and spread the message.
I hope they do.
Because finally I see an end to evil.
