Now say it in neon upper case

This story on election materials was done during my stint with the Bangalore Mirror in 2008. As I used to pass this whole sale election material shop on a daily routine on way to office and home, I had decided when the elections days closes in I would do the story. The story was published in the BM pages on January 5th, 2008.

Elections normally mean so much white noise, festoons, banners and posters, much of it in such garish colours. It is not only so much gibberish but creates a whole lot of garbage as well. Imagine then, an Indian election with no garbage.

If Jeswanth and Bharat Jain have their way, Indian elections could look very different in the near future. As dealers in wholesale election material, they dream of doing away with the litter that is the inevitable aftermath of a political meeting or rally in our city.
“I saw the lights on Brigade Road during Deepawali and I was inspired to do something like that for our elections as well. After all, elections are festivals of democracy and why not light up the festival?” says Jeswanth, a 35 year old second generation entrepreneur who has taken over his father’s election material business.

Flashing neon t-shirts and projection pens are two of the innovative products they plan to bring out in the forthcoming elections. With some R&D and a few trips to China to buy the relevant technology, they are getting set to change the concept of election propaganda material. “The challenge is to make these products affordable. This is possible only with mass production” says Bharat Jain, who runs the business with his brother jeswanth.
“We cannot focus on local candidates, as this will make mass production impossible. We will therefore focus on national candidates and party leaders. This will make it cost-effective and the product will be useful all over the country,” he adds. Hence, you can expect more of Sonia, Rahul, Mayawati, Advani and Vajpayee.

The Neon sign boards in the R&D stage (above left) the pen illumination (above right) Jeshwanth Jain (left) and some of the party t-shirts (above) .

The flashing neon t-shirts come with a small battery pack and were inspired by neon boards, which are commonly used for advertising these days. As the products are still in the R&D stage, the pricing has not yet been decided, they said. However, we will try to make the material the cheapest possible because we are aware of the Election Commission’s 10 percent cap on election material related expenses.
“The most common complaint from the common man is the fact that the election material maker our cities dirty. So we have to come up with ideas that do not need cleaning up. Instead of posters, banners and flyers, let’s use t-shirts and pens!” With flex banners, the use of paper posters has come down, with these t-shirts and pens, it will come down further.
About the EC, the brothers have plenty to say. “The EC’s mandate, “says Jeswanth, “is eating into the livelihood of a lot of small manufacturers. With the strict enforcement of the law, it is not the candidates who suffer, but the small people who form the chain of the election material production.”
The lady at the tailoring machine, the packers, the auto-drivers who transportsit, the people who put up the hoardings … it is a long process and affords livelihood to innumerable people. These are the people who will suffer if the cap on the election material expenses is enforced strictly, he says.
‘With election material, the voter gets to know who the candidate is, and what his symbol is. So election material is critical to the democratic process. We outsource our production to many NGO’s where women and poor people work. So the EC’s directive hits them hard. If 10 lags are put on a car, it only costs Rs 100. But the media and EC, make us the villains. For just Rs 10,000, we can make every village look festive. Election material is not really expensive,” he said.
Also, the EC’s directive, leads to inadvertent consequences like increasing invisible expenses like free liquor, trucking in people, etc. the EC should take note of this, Jeswanth contends.

IS THIS REALLY TRUE?

We decided to check with Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahaila Udyog Sanghatan, and this is what he says: “Soon after the Bhopal gas tragedy, we took up the work of producing election material, and the survivors were very happy. However, for the last two elections, our workload has gone down. This has hit us badly.”

Graffitie unchecked despite EC ban

This story I had written without the thought that it would make to the front page of the Hindustan Times – Bhopal edition. When I was riding back after submitting the forms for the issue of election commission passes to cover the Madhya Pradesh elections in 2002 on 17th October, I happened to see the walls all over the city defaced with the political parties trying to get the better space on someone else’s walls by promoting and prompting the voters to cast their vote to their respective party. This I thought had been banned by the Central election commission and the State EC too. But the rules were being opulently flouted by the political parties and their candidates. So I came back to the office and asked my RE if I could go ahead and write the story, to which he readily obliged and guided me how to go about it.

Political parties may not have announced candidates for the forthcoming State Assembly elections but graffiti by their likely contestants has begun in right earnest. And this is happening despite clear guidelines of the Election Commission against graffiti for electioneering.
On the arrival of Samajwadi Party chief Mulyam Singh Yadav, party workers too to large-scale graffiti in the old city areas. And when they were removed at the behest of District Collector Anurag Jain, film actor Raza Murad in this typical style chided him for being partisan during Yadav’s rally.
“You can not rub off Mulyam Singh’s name from the hearts of the people. You can only scrub off our slogans from the walls but so it with the Congress slogans as well”, he said.
He seems to be right here. Slogans are being scrubbed off the walls but supporters of the Congress leaders like MLA from Bhopal (South) P C Sharma are writing new slogans seeking vote for the Congress after congratulating people on Diwali.
In the entire stretch from Roshanpura to Priyadarshani Park and beyond, three blocks of slogans – congratulating people on the Deepawali, seeking support for P C Sharma and then appealing for vote to the Congress – abound on both sides of the road. And is has happened in the past week even after Jain convened a meeting of all political parties and took an undertaking from them to desist from graffiti.
While talking to the Hindustan Times, Jain said that it has not been brought to his notice. But if graffiti is done on private property without the consent of the owner, he might well lodge an FIR with the police and prompt action would be taken. If walls of public property were defaced this way, he would take suo moto action.
Here lies the catch. Most of the buildings on this stretch are residential complexes with no single owner and public properties like offices and parks. On the other side of the road are shanties. In both cases, an FIR seems improbable though no consent was sought from anyone.
Jain said that in the case of private property action could only be taken when there is an FIR. “The Defacement of Property Act does not come into effect at the time of elections alone. Graffiti by anyone without consent of the owner is punishable in any case. But after model code of conduct came into effect, it has become my responsibility to ensure that there is no graffiti on public places and without consent of the owner private property is also not defaced”, he said.
He further informed that a decision was taken at the all=party meeting not to write fresh slogans on the walls and rub off all the slogans already written throughout the City.
“The Samajwadi Party workers had violated the rule during the visit of their party chief but slogans written then were immediately removed”, he said.
Jain said that a team of seven persons has been deputed at each of the police station areas to rub off the slogans and the process would pick up after the Prime Minister’s visit on Sunday.

Man in a great hurry

This small piece written by me was published in the Deccan Herald reporter’s dairy. What was nice in this small piece was that I wrote about a man who transformed the face of the electorate and also the fort which holds such electoral process. I think by now you would have taken a guess? Yes it was none other than T N Seshan the Chief Election Commissioner – CEC of the Election Commission of India.

Countdown has begun… that’s how Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan’s encounter begins with the press photographers in Delhi every time they come across the ebullient former civil servant.
Seshan, who has a penchant for publicity and would invariably like to see his pictures in newspapers, normally sets a time-limit for lensmen to ‘shoot’ him before every important meeting he attends.

On September 28, 1994 too, when he, along with the other two Election Commissioners, met the leaders of various political parties, the countdown… was repeated by Seshan as photographers jostled with each other to capture the rotund CEC in their cameras at the Nirvachan Sadan, the headquarters of the Election Commission. Looking at the battery of lensmen ready to ‘snipe’ at him in the small, clustered hall of the Sadan, Sehsna cried out at the cameramen “the countdown ha begun” and to no surprise of the photographers started counting: 1000, 999, 998, … 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 …” and yelled ‘Now get out all of you.’ “The meeting will start now.” As the CEC continues to be the prize catch, he was promptly there to meet all the newspapers the next morning.

The Village which Defied Democracy

When the whole world stands up to salute the Democrat processes of India, this little village on the outskirts of the silicon city of Bangalore defied this very same process and also wounded it with a nail right through the heart of Democracy.
Ramagondanahalli 16 kilometers away from the center of the garden city of Bangalore and 10 kilometers away from the electronic city (Silicon City) stayed away from exercising their franchise except for one black sheep in the whole of the village.
Though many newspapers in the city of Bangalore and the TV crews missed the non voting defiance by the villagers against their farm land grab by the Bangalore Development Authority, the DNA Bangalore edition had a small single column in their 24th April, 2009. Since the next day was Saturday and I had got myself into a relax mode, did nor bother nor take any pain to follow it up. But on Sunday, I was hell bend on going to the village to speak to the people who had defied Democracy.
When I reached Ramagondanahalli along with Preetha S Kumar (one of the few present day journalists who likes to go on the field), while most others would rather than sit in the office and collect them on the phone or worse still were some of them make up quotes with fabricated names, may god bless them.
The serene surrounding of the village was a pleasure to see and then talking to the residents who defied to vote and to add insult to injury they also told us that how they shooed away the visiting candidates of the Bangalore North constituency.
So talking to them became very easy as they obliged us and the village elders took us around and allowed us to cross question anyone at will in their village as to why they did not go to vote.
Most of the villager’s young and old whom we spoke to had one answer with them and that was the Bangalore Development Authority was acquiring their farming land in the name of development and compensating them with 40 percent of the authentic value of their land. This they say with a chorus ‘was robbing them of their livelihood and also undermining them as illiterates.’ So we decided to teach the whole Indian political system a lesson, which if this system is rightfully put to use will be – By the people, for the people and of the people – while this no longer exists. The motto now by the present political system is – By the people, for my family and of my family - one need not take a guess at what I am trying to convey.
There was revolution in Ramagondanahalli. The villagers want their land back from the BDA. As DNA reported, the protest came to a head in Thursday’s poll. The entire village, barring one resident, just refused to cast their ballots. Below are some of the reactions from the angry village on Sunday, three days after the polls, and found its residents fuming and remorseless.
Below are the pictures taken by me along with the angry quotes of the villagers against the BDA acquiring their homes as well as their farming land for the every land hungry citizens of the silicon city.

Dreams to be razed: Some of the portions of the Ramagondanahalli village which houses 1300 odd residents with some of them who have constructed their dream homes will be razed to the ground by the ever growing city of Bangalore. These farming lands along with their homes will be shortly converted into Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) plots, for the ever demanding land hungry citizens of the silicon valley.

Elders Speak: Lakshmamma, 90, right, with her daughter-in-law Ratnamma, 30. She says she would definitely have voted, had the BDA reversed its decision (left), as Veerappa, 85, with wife Sakamma, 70, and daughter, 32, are likely to lose their livelihood if the BDA acquires their half-acre farmland. (right)

Farmers Say: Munai Gowda, 26, works on his only farm which BDA is acquiring (left) as V Narayanappa, 53, has five acres of arable land. He is not happy with BDA’s suggestion that he can retain 40 per cent of his land. (right)

Tough Talk: N Srinivasaiyya, 53, has a large family, with 35 dependants. He is an arecanut farmer and the loss of land will spell doom for his family, (left) Sokkamma, 84, is furious at BDA’s attempt to acquire her land. “Can you tell us what will we eat? Mud perhaps?” she yells. (right)

Youth Anger:Harshita, 18, seen above with her family, decided to forgo the opportunity to vote for the first time, in solidarity with the rest of the village (left), Sreenivas, 44, Anusuyamma, 32, and Mavitha S, 25, show their voters’ identification cards, which, of course, they didn’t use.(right)

Woman Power: Vyankantamma, 45, with her 25, year old daughter Gangamma have 10 quintals of land with a few cows and a small house which they will lose to the BDA land grab (left), as Shanthamma, 30, owns half an acre of land. She stares at a bleak future as the BDA remains steadfast in its decision to acquire land. (right)

Family Fury: Vajramani, 50, along with his mother Siddhamma, 74 and wife Padma, 45 who own 32 quintals of land say that they will have to eat mud if the BDA takes away their land and home (left), as Ramaswamy, right, 50, with wife Mahalakshmi, 38, and daughter Mamta, 18. They do not regret their decision to abstain from voting. (right)

M Shyamanna, 65 who has two wives and four daughters yet to be married says that the political system in this country stinks from head to toe, and adds that he can not sell his 5 acre land because of the BDA litigations against their village, (left) as N Muniraju, 45 who aslo owns 5 acres along with his 4 other brothers and with a joint family strength of 25 members, he said that the BDA is paying us 40 percent of the actual value of the land and where do they expect our 25 members to sleep and cook their daily meal.

The villagers say that they will boycott all future elections and not let any candidate in their village ever if the BDA does not stall the land acquisition. “Let the BDA cancel the acquisition first, then we'll think of something else. Until then, there is no question of voting even next year or even during the upcoming councilor polls” said the whole village in one voice.
If this happens it will put democracy to back in time to rethink where our elected democrats will be worried about, since if this issue is allowed to boil many such Ramagondanahalli's will be born in the world’s largest country which flaunts of a sovereign, socialist, secular and Democratic Republic in their constitution only on paper.