In Delhi, where I live, I often find myself in the company of people who lament the political leadership of the country, while, at the same time, blaming the vast hinterland — the rural, barely educated population of their imagination — for electing these people. Before the 2014 general election, I was at the house of one of my friends who works at Microsoft, and heard yet again this conversation roll on, about how the uneducated, easily-corruptible masses were destroying the country by voting casteist and criminal political leaders to power. When I mentioned that it is India’s rural population that has always voted the most, and displayed their commitment to democracy far better than the educated elite, all I received was a blank stare.
Such conversations have re-emerged in the wake of the Bihar elections, especially after the apparent resurrection of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s political career. “Why is it,” people ask, “that the poor of India elect people who will keep them poor?” or some such homily. While I cannot aspire to fully explain the Indian electorate, I do sometimes wonder about the people who ask these questions. I wonder how they can think of their fellow-citizens as second-class citizens who should vote as their ‘betters’ feel they should. The few times that I have asked why people think they are better, they immediately cite the fact that they pay their taxes. It is well-known that only a small percentage of Indians — generally those in middle-class jobs who cannot avoid it — pay income tax, and many mistake this obligation as a virtue. They somehow forget that every Indian pays tax of some kind or another, especially the indirect taxes on products they buy, whether it is petrol or soap. These taxes are inescapable. They are also regressive, in that a desperately poor person pays as much as a very rich person for 100 grams of salt.
These taxes are what are used to build the nation — the roads we walk, cycle or drive on; the uniforms and weaponry of our soldiers; the bridges over our rivers, our nuclear plants and rockets carrying payloads into space. All of these are built from taxes paid, and yet it is often easy to see who benefits the most from these. In a country where less than 10 per cent of the population owns cars, there are almost no bicycle lanes. I was told by a friendly road official that if I had a motorcycle accident on a flyover in Delhi, I could not claim insurance as the flyovers are technically not for two-wheelers. So who exactly is this infrastructure for, if not the vast majority of people who pay for it?
Maybe nothing makes me ask this question as much as when I am on my way to, or from, the airport. Air travel — carbon emissions be damned — are one of the badges of the well-travelled Indian, especially if it is international travel. On the way to the domestic and international airports in Delhi, you get a wonderful glimpse of how our most privileged fellow-citizens behave. As you approach the last flyover to the domestic airport, you find that the lane on your left is blocked with vehicles, sometimes for as much as 200-300 metres. All of them have their drivers inside, who have decided that instead of paying the price for a parking slot, they will illegally park on the flyover and wait, jeopardising both themselves and anybody approaching the airport.
On the way to the international airport there is no flyover, and because of the danger of terrorist attacks, the approach roads are well-patrolled. The international airport also has one of the best parking spaces in Delhi, with six floors. All except two of those floors of the parking space are usually empty, and the reason is simple: instead of paying the small price for parking — much less than the price of the flight, certainly far less than that of the flashy new cars — the cars, many of them fitted with blue or red beacons, line up at the arrival area and just wait. This is the vision that our richest, most privileged Indians present to those arriving from around the world: a triple-lane mess of people, inconsiderately, illegally and rudely blocking the way of everyone else, just so that they can cheat the state — their fellow-citizens — of the small amount they are charged for parking. And it is these very people who then lecture anybody that they talk to, about how the rural, uneducated Indians continue to elect the corrupt and the criminal. If only they looked in the mirror they would realise who exactly the corrupt and the criminal are.
Omair Ahmad is the South Asia Editor for the Third Pole, reporting on water issues in the Himalayas; @OmairTAhmad