Hour Of Fame,crying Shame

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  It is 07.00 am. Tuesday. 6th April,2021. The little man with the little finger is standing outside the little booth to exercise his franchise. It is so calm, so silent and so peaceful. The names and numbers of voters, are called out in the Brinda Primary School, attached to Gopalapuram Boys’ Higher Secondary School, Chennai-600 086, where I did my schooling, in a quiet and friendly voice, among the party representatives. No raised voice. No raised fist. Nothing. Just the logistics gone through, for a peaceful polling process. Just recall the voting in Booth No. 7, a Nandigram School building, on April 1, 2021. What a soothing contrast and welcome difference. TN can feel proud for itself and its citizens.
  Adlai Stevenson said, “It is not enough to have every intelligent person in the country voting for me-I need a majority”. Elections are when people find out what politicians stand for and politicians find out what people will fall for. W C Fields put it crisper,“ Hell,I never vote for anybody. I always vote against”. This election in Tamil Nadu is no different? It is TN’s hour of Fame that elections are slated just for a day and one Phase only, unlike in other States. But it is then, its hour of crying Shame time too with Rs.428,46,00,000/- (crores) being seized in cash.
  That was only the tip of the iceberg and only suggests what slipped through or was allowed to, as a wag put it.
  We celebrate democracy. And Adult suffrage. Elections in India is a festival. And the din and dust has a religious fervour to it. We talk, talk and talk. And the ideological food fights are inane and insane. Clement Attlee said, “Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking”. Winston Churchill impishly added, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter like you and me”. But, is there a better alternative? None whatsoever-we surely do not have one. We do not want the Russian democracy variant when, after a break in, the results of Vladimir Putin victory, after 2025 elections,were found. My cursory research on India’s elections took me to 231/232, Lloyds Road,Gopalapuram (where else) and to Mr. K B Madhava, Professor of Mathematical Economics and Statistics of Mysore University, who went on to occupy the pulpit at Indian Statistical Institute, then Calcutta. Well, KBM was the erudite grandfather of my best friend late S K Giridhar, and the house they resided in, is right behind my present abode.
  (Incidentally, it was the first property - KBM’s son Mr. Srikrishna was the owner then- to go under the scanner of now defunct Chapter XXC of IT Act,1961 suspecting Rs.36 lakhs for 9 grounds, was too low and taken over and sold to now occupied Indian Oil employees’ residential flats, for Rs.54 lakhs- all records now in public domain).
  I loved to scale our rear wall, to their residence and share the multiple delights of custard apple, from the hands
  of Ms. Radha Srikrishna, KBM’s daughter in law, herself a skilled writer and artist, besides a tasty chef. It was the pro active member of the Constituent Assembly, the ‘rebel’ as he was called Mr. K T Shah, who mooted the ‘colossal project of the preparation of the draft electoral roll on the basis of adult franchise’ by a letter dt. 27th Aug,1947, addressed to President Bapu Rajendra Prasad. K T Shah opined, “ I, therefore, suggest that the occasion may be utilised to take a complete Census of the country about the same time”. It was this ‘suggestion’ that was referred to KBM, who advised “ not to combine the preparation of electoral rolls with the census. For, an electoral roll is a statutory document, while a census is a ‘useful inventory’ and the implications of the two tasks are very different. The former is done on the basis of particular qualifications and enfranchisement and requires a complete enumeration, while the latter covers demographic, sociological and economic characteristics and can be done on the basis of sampling”. That was the start of the logistics involved in the enumeration of both. The TN and Gopalapuram connect-vis a vis Constituent Assembly - N Gopalswamy Ayyangar, India’s first Defence Minister, father in law of V K T Chari, 228, Lloyds Road, Gopalapuram who as then Madras State Advocate General was the author of Ninth Schedule to Constitution and First Amendment, in his legal advice to K Kamaraj and Jawaharlal Nehru, is stimulating to this day. Mind you, N Gopalaswamy Ayyangar was the author of Art.370, according special status t
  republic, after casting my vote today, makes me a proud Indian. No matter what the result of the TN elections, that we are a functioning democracy,even if cacophonously chaotic, if not an anarchy, we can all feel proud to be part of this heritage. And to think that voting would be close to 70% in a peaceful expression, despite the heat, humidity and Pandemic, lends credence to Tamil pride in We The People. Politicians be damned. They are highly incidental to me, in the ultimate scheme of things. This is, ironically,TN’s Hour of Fame and Crying Shame, all at once.
  (Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)

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