Why practise responsible voting?
The importance of voting in the modern democratic process, and especially in the context of Nation Building, is central to the role of citizenship in a foundational sense. India, the world’s largest democracy, hosts its largest festival, the General Elections of 2019.
While, the Indian electorate is approximately 900 million strong, the sex ratio among registered voters in the country is only 908 women for every 1,000 men (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2018). This means that voting, as an exercise of a legal right, in India, is not merely confined to the scope of elections, but moves beyond into the realm of social responsibility, as a duty.
The duty to vote facilitates – for an individual citizen of this country, the beginning of a long march into ensuring the values and ethos of social, economic and political importance and significance. In order to become part of governance, uphold the relationship between rights and responsibilities, citizens need to exercise – through voting – a sense of realizing about their ownership and representation in society.
In India, at the General Elections of 2014, approximately 39.6 core female voters voted.
Citizens are the foremost members in the sustainable development and progress of any nation. Therefore, as individuals, citizens are not just measures of a country’s acknowledgement about its potential, but perhaps the spirit and strengths – as enshrined in the Constitution of India – to secure justice, liberty, equality and fraternity for all. In this regard, the vibrancy of India’s democracy, cannot reach its absolute potential if citizens, especially the youth and women, do not exercise their sense of duty.
This duty should be practised in letter and spirit – to hold the people in positions of power accountable; act with responsibility and fairness in our assessments; choose to participate and not be ignorant.
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Regards,
The CSR Journal Team
