The Bharatiya Janata Party’s efforts to ensure over five million first-time voters congregated at different locations across the country to listen to a speech delivered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is very laudable. Political goals, narratives and values aside, all parties across the spectrum must similarly reach out to first-time voters and give them a strong foundational primer to the value of democracy, citizen’s duties and participation in politics, especially voting.
Time and again, while India takes pride in its position in the world as the largest democracy and for maintaining an extraordinary quality of elections in terms of logistics and processes, we have been failing with voting percentages, especially among youth and in urban locations.
It is a strange anomaly that, even though rural and poorer citizens have benefited the least from the overall system in material terms, it is the urban middle classes, who are the greater beneficiaries, that stay away from politics, especially when it comes to dispensing the duty of voting. It is, therefore, imperative on the political class to take upon itself to restore their faith in democracy, and there is no more significant category than first-time and young voters.
Harnessing its organisational strength, and its various bodies, including the youth-centric Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the BJP ensured a combination of high-tech and high-touch campaigns to ensure that first time voters were welcomed to electoral democracy.
India does not have complex duties for citizens, unlike in some of the Western nations that have jury duties, or other civic duties, which are borne by government employees in most cases. However, voting has been a power which the Indian voter has used wisely, time and again, to either re-elect, or reject, a government, both at the state or Central levels.
India must feel proud that Mr Modi welcomed such a large group of youth to celebrate and cherish their power as first-time voters, and to use the vote with wisdom and discretion. It is time other parties also reach out to them and ensure that most citizens, if not all, are actively involved in our polity.
