Modi is India's only hope, can't let him fail

We are citizens. Quite frankly, we are selfish. Like everybody else. Our primary concern is ourselves. And our woes are many. 

It matters little to us who rules, and who is sulking on the sidelines. We are more interested in small things - roti, kapda, makaan. Also, toilets (some 46 per cent of us have none) and a little paani (many of us live in those 5,00,000 villages, where safe drinking water is a rarity), some education for our children and life-saving medicines when they fall ill.

Also read: Why India must not stop criticising Modi and his politics

For the last several decades we hoped that we would rise with the fall of governments. We did not. We voted for change.

Change, each time, proved fickle like off-season clouds. They promise rain, but deceive and disappoint. Our hopes died young. We were always left waiting for the next elections. Our elders died waiting.

Now we too are tired.  Many of us are tempted to press NOTA, when we go into polling booths. We like that word, NOTA.  It sounds like lota, which is a luxury for us. Especially when it holds some water.

We are lost in this political kabaddi. Some of us cry, some laugh, when we see hungama (we are told it is called "debate")  in Parliament. Our angrezi master tells us that "debate" is now just another word for fighting and shouting.

Also read: Panchayati Raj under Modi is not for Dalits, women, adivasis

In that case,  we prefer to watch sports channels, where wrestling is amusing and entertaining. The wrestlers think we don’t know they are faking! They don't know how much faking we are used to. They fake fighting. Well, that’s their livelihood. But, when it comes to the Parliament, it is our livelihood.

How we wish opposition parties at least had cared for us. They fight and paralyse the Parliament, but we do not figure in their agenda.

Our hope gasps when politics is organised around enmity and hatred. We know that these are balloons of distraction. The poor have neither friends nor  enemies.

Well, not quite. We do have a few enemies. Poverty. And its terrible brood of hunger, humiliation, illness, debt, premature death.  Why is nobody interested in fighting our enemies?

Thousands of our children die each week due to diarrhoea. Millions can't attend school. When illnesses come calling, quacks bleed us to death.

We know that we have nothing to hope for, so long as this game of "enmity" goes on. You are interested in make-belief. We don't believe your make beliefs. We have our burning issues.

The fire in our belly, for example. Our parched throats, for example. Our children for whom there is no future, for example. Our women who are raped, for example. We have endured it for too long.

We hoped against hope that the nightmare would end and we would someday begin to live like human beings.

Governments changed. Nothing changed for us. We were used. Forgotten. Each time we voted with eager and aching hearts. Many of us sacrifise a day's wage to vote.

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We were told that our votes were mighty. That they had the power to  change our plight. We believed the canard. We are beginning to feel cheated.

Please don't promise improvements after the next election. We want our misery mitigated before the next election. We are sick and tired of promises. We try to munch promises and hurt ourselves in the stomach. 

There may not be another election for many of us. We may not survive till then. Some of us are  desperate unto death.

We feel bitter about religion. Religions have no place for us. They are always on the side of the rich and the corrupt. We, the poor, have no god. So, don’t ask us to fight in the name of religion.

We are willing to fight for a morsel of food, not for god. We find it hard to believe that your gods are our gods. Why are gods so partisan? Why are they blind to our pains? Your gods... Hindu, Muslim, Christian... Why do they look the other way when our children die young, our girls are raped and our empty stomachs growl under acid rains?

Prime Minister Modi looks like our last hope. So we chant, NaMo, NaMo... We want him to succeed. We will give him lifelong loyalty, in exchange for mere survival.

Give our children a tomorrow. (We who have no "today" can't ask for a "better" tomorrow.) We'd die than hate anyone or support politics of violence.  Anyway, we look doomed to die.

Why should we die hating? We have cast our lot  with Modi ji, for unfurling the banner of our hopes. We wish to hold on... hoping against hope... What else can we do? 

Sometimes we watch TV programmes. Then we wonder in which country we are living. There is so much wealth! Pomp and show! Glitter and the flutter! Thunderous celebration of a growth story.

Many of us, watching all this, sink through the floor. Literally. Our floors are not made of marble or granite, you see. Nor are there carpets to come in the way.

There is something about Modi ji that appeals to us. That soft and delicate outlines of his oneness with us, thanks to his  own humble beginnings. So, he knows our anger and our misery. Our desperation. That makes us hope!

One last word to Modi ji. Hope he listens to our "mann ki baat". It makes good political sense to let a few crumbs fall for us from the sumptuous table of  development.

We vote. The rich don’t. They may pay. But they pay only to take it back, a hundred fold. You are our last gamble, we who are the majority in this country.

We do not want to turn away from you. We have trusted nobody else. You alone can stand between us and NOTA next time. Please do.