Poll festival

At one level, mass contact through direct meetings and personal appearances is critical to the principle and practice of democracy. And hence the 32-day yatra that Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani has embarked upon, in which he is slated to cover 12,000 km, and the punishing travel schedule that Sonia Gandhi has set for herself, can be considered as necessary and important. This process gives leaders an opportunity to listen to ordinary people and their concerns while providing them with the opportunity to influence the voter through their personalities and the policies of their parties. But at best they can only establish such contact with a minuscule percentage of the population in a country with over 675 million voters.

There is, therefore, an obvious lack of sync. At one level, the sheer scale of handling an electorate as large as this has forced India to resort to the electronic voting machine. At the same time, although we are world leaders in information technology, we still have not got around to harnessing modern communication techniques to enhance contact between those aspiring to become leaders and the people, thus empowering people themselves to make the best electoral choices. Obviously, the mass media like television, radio and newspapers could take the message of the candidates to dramatically larger audiences than any yatra or road show can. They would also make leaders more accountable. It is so easy to make promises to small crowds within a comparatively limited context and promptly forget about them by the next stop on the road.

The use of television, radio and the print media has certainly helped improve the depth and nature of national political discourse. But at the moment the discourse is still confined to a limited group. The big question is this: how can we extend the political debate to the largest possible numbers in this age of the information revolution? Clearly, if this is to happen, the mass media will have to play a far greater role than they do at present. Possibly, the day is not far off when regional broadcasting stations are harnessed to serve electoral purposes, to provide the great bridge between the electorate and potential leaders, to extend the forum for debate and discussion on regional and local issues. In fact it should be made mandatory for every candidate for the Lok Sabha to address the nation and his/her own constituency through the mass media regularly on core issues of local and national concern. Similarly, people must be enabled to raise the questions that concern their interests and confront prospective leaders with them. Such a development would help make our elections the people8217;s festivals they are meant to be.