Must Election Campaigns Be Banned?

Must Campaigns Be Banned Altogether

By Harish Bijoor

Have you noticed? Elections and the campaigns that accompany them are getting quieter and quieter. Even less exciting than the ones that preceded them. It’s a matter of perspective really. While the politician at large feels there is less excitement on the election campaign process itself, from the lay-voter point of view, there is that much more clarity and that much less noise that drowns out the real issues at large.

The Election Commission is to be thanked or blamed for it all. Again, depends on the perspective you come from. I would personally go all the way out and thank the guys at the EC who have made this happen over successive sets of elections. Progressively, over the years, more and more of these regulations have stepped in to halt the otherwise raucous tempo of electioneering and undue throw of money-power.

In the old days, think elections, and you thought noise and clutter. The process was truly un-regulated and therefore the election campaign at large was electoral pollution at its best. There was visual pollution and clutter all around in terms of posters, banners, streamers, buntings, Chennai-style cutouts and more. When you looked around, the election looked like a festival of democracy for sure. In this festival atmosphere however, there was little to distinguish and a lot to confuse. In many ways, the one who put up the most posters looked the biggest and the poor candidate with little or no money looked very small. Never mind the issues and philosophy he or she represented as an individual and minor party in the fray.

Add to this visual pollution,  noise pollution as well. Every place of every kind was used for electioneering. Schools, colleges, temples, churches and mosques were not left out of it as well. Music would blare right through into the wee hours of the morning disturbing schools, hospitals and the sleeping public at large. The election continued to be a festival of noise and sound. Auto-rickshaws with loudspeakers, taxis with folk singing songs and shouting into microphones and more. Remember?

Again, the one with more money to burn on the campaign was a better guy, at least in terms of his imagery in the constituency.

The campaign included more of course. And this part of it is still not as regulated as it can and must be. Biryani-dinners, cricket-clubs in villages with sponsored t-shirts and caps and prizes, mobilization of crowds, grocery-shop coupons to redeem, liquor-coupons to redeem and lots more to redeem, except respect.

The point I make is a simple one. Campaigns at large gobble up money. This money is of different colors: black, grey and white. The ‘black’ is spent in terms of hard cash that comes from God and the Devil knows where. The ‘grey’ money is all about benefactors who sponsor dinners and posters and taxis and helicopters and more, without coming to the fore of it all, and the ‘white’ is the Rs.16 lakhs a candidate is allowed to spend on a campaign.

Campaigns that consume money to 'influence' voters are an insult to the electorate. Why insult at all? Campaigns that consume money must be banned altogether. Why must so much money be spent to 'influence' voters?

Why must a voter be ‘influenced’ at all? Yes, a voter must be ‘informed’ but not ‘influenced’. The process of keeping a voter informed and aware can be well achieved by the EC itself. Why not ban campaigns altogether? Allow for only 1:1 contact programs of the candidate and the voter at large. No support campaigners even. Allow for television and radio debates with clearly allocated free slots for all candidates in the fray. Lessen the noise, and lessen the pollution further. Campaigns in many ways increase the clutter, are cost-intensive and confuse and confound.

Think again from the perspective of expenditure. None of us really believes that all a candidate in a constituency spends is as little as Rs. 16 lakhs on the campaign.  The truth lies somewhere in the number between Rs. 35.84 Crores on the Karnataka election and a number of Rs. 6000 Crores as touted by some.

Will we save a lot of time, energy, money and pollution of every kind if only campaigns are banned altogether? Touche!

Twitter @harishbijoor