I am becoming a little wary of the tricolour these days. More often than not, it’s the background for some hideous face of another ‘candidate’ who promises the world on a platter but will deliver nothing of that. The colours have become heralds of election season and all I can do is cringe when I see car windshields plastered with the sickly smiles of men whose eyes scarcely conceal their greed for the power.

            This country sees too many people willing to use some of its most immortal symbols for their own personal gain. Ours is a populace that reeks of gullibility through the year and more so when the polls come by. Basically, we’re gullible. We even seem to take a cola company’s new ad campaign very seriously.

            If we allow everyone to tell us that everything is okay, it simply means we’re justifying ignoring the things that need changing. Like all this believing we do in people simply because they seem to have the ‘country’s interests’ at heart and on their manifesto. But are they really prepared to see them through? Are we prepared, as an electing public, to launch a leader with the real means and mind to make things happen?

            I think we aren’t. We still haven’t had our fill of novelty voting. We either choose on the principle of immediate gains or we have no idea who we’re voting for, what ideologies we will empower when we hit a party symbol in the polling booths. OR we just don’t vote.

            Voter Cards are for the identity proof and the address proof and the age proof and all that jazz. Not for the sake of our democratic responsibility. Is this word recognizable? It’s time to stop teaching R for ‘right’ and begin to say R for ‘responsibility’.