Insti Politics and the country..

Hostel elections, Insti elections..... Two guys contesting for gen sec( probably one gult and another northie as I've seen)(For non- IITM junta.... all students from central and North India are called Northies, from south, we have Gults(Telugu), Tams(Tamil), Digs(Kannada) and Mallus(Malayalam speakers)...). Before nominations are filed, the aspiring guys talk to each other... Two Northies won't contest, coz that'll split Northie votes they say. Two Gults won't contest for the same reason. And then there is something I heard recently, the worst that could be. A guy who was just too enthued to contest for some sec in a hostel (I guess it was Ganga, may be Godav also.. one of the two) had to drop out because some senior didn't like it. And that senior wants some other guy to contest. And this first guy knows the second guy is too dumb and that he'll have no support at all but still he drops out. I'd love to speak a lot on this issue, but because it was a senior involved, I dare not comment on it.

Now, nominations filed. Campaigning starts. No one says in his campaigning that he should get vote because he's a gult or a non-gult. But then there are his friends... They spread this talk.. "Dude, he's a gult. Vote for him and we'll get hazzaar benefits." "Dude, don't vote for that gult guy. All gults will get coordships n coreships. We'll get screwed. If you vote to this guy, I'll get you a coordship." That's how it happens. Most people don't even look at the manifestos. They vote because they fear they and their friends won't get any coordships and if their candidate wins, they can peacefully get a coordship even if they cup with their application.

Then, there are soap boxes. In our hostel we had these secretaries(seriously, I still don't know how they've become secretaries. Except this sports-sec, I felt all others just didn't deserve to be). When they're expected to moderate the soapbox, they start favoring the guy they support. They answer questions this guy was asked and they ask those who ask questions to stop asking crappy questions. Then comes the guy who's against the guy they support. Now they don't answer any questions directed at him, but instead say none of his friends should answer questions directed at him. All you see in a soap box is some shit, partly due to those arbit secretaries and partly do to arbit questions asked and the bulbing of the contestants completes it.

Scene shifts to the hostel computer rooms. There's a queue and you see these arbit guys standing there telling junta whom to vote for. Now, there are a lot of guys who have no idea about the guys contesting. These guys are told in the last minute that some contestant is good or that he's gult or non-gult or some crap and obviously that contestant gets the vote. But officially, no such thing should be happening from 24 hours before the election time. Now there are these "politicians" in the insti, who I think are totally jobless and have no work other than screwing things up. These guys direct people to vote for one guy or the other. There are these famous guys who are said to be responsible for a group of voters who were supposed to vote for one guy but voted for the other in the last moment. And then you also hear that most of these political meetings happen in tifanys and outside Sharav(girls' hostel in insti) and that the expected result may change overnight if someone has very good contis in sharav...

Then elections are done. Some win, and that implies some lose. There are treats. All guys who supported this candidate get some nice treat somewhere. Winners do spend quite a fortune I heard, some 10k or more... The question now is, why all this pain for elections? Is it out of enthu that a guy contests in elections? Or is it to get something nice in his resume? For fame? Or for the money?

After a couple of months, probably after a sem,  we have these allegations that some particular secretary has kulted a lot of cash from hostel funds, that some sec has done nothing except going around with girls and all this crap. How many secretaries do we have who've done their work properly-whatever they've mentioned and without kulting cash?
Well, forget all this.. Shit happens. Nobody's perfect.....

Now, look at the politics in the country. IIT junta are supposedly more 'educated' the others and one expects that elections here and the candidates would be proper and there won't be all this arbit campaigning, kulting and all. But that's not happening. We know that the guy who's going to win isn't going to work properly. Still, these guys are elected and then the same guys who voted for him some months back start complaining this guys isn't doing any good.

We cannot stop a sec in a hostel from kulting some 10k from hostel funds and we talk about the country. A lot of us attend these EMLs(Extra Mural Lectures) when its by some well known Indian Civil Service guy or when its on politics or something like this... But we do nothing in our own insti. And outside, in the 'real' world, its not some 21 year olds who're running for these elections. It's not just something beside a bullet in your resume when you're talking about elections for assembly or parliament. And there, they go as far as killing people if absolutely necessary. Looking at elections in insti, isn't it very obvious that politics in the country is bound to be much worse. Before coming here, I thought politics are the worst and could be a lot better than it is right now. Now, after witnessing what happens in insti, I feel that we're very lucky, that our political leaders are very good and this is the best we can get.

Where is the problem? Is it the system? Well, democracy is the best they say, or they say it's the worst but we know nothing better.
Is it the leaders? I don't think so. Each year, here in insti, we have new guys contesting and everytime it looks the same.
Is it the voters? What else do you expect when all these "clever", "educated" guys act like a bunch of fools when it comes to elections?
Is it with the law that doesn't punish these crappy practices? No way, our insti can't stop a simple guy from going to a hostel and asking them to vote for some guy, right in front of the hostel warden, during the election, in the queue. How can something happen in a country as big as this?
Maybe these are more questions that don't have an answer....

And I'd love to see comments from my readers. These thoughts I present here keep bugging me and I find no solution to many of them...  would love to see some comments