Call it angst or traditional constraint, women in the nondescript village of Seherua in the Terai area of lakhimpur Kheri district have never voted in their lives and like previous occasions, they will not be voting in this parliamentary election too when their area goes to polls on April 30.
The story of why the women of Seherua don’t exercise their franchise begins before the concept of the ballot box reached this village and people cast their votes by raising hands at the chaupal.
“The elders of the village preferred to keep the women out of the system of raising hands in the chaupal, hence they were deprived of their right to vote. By the time, the system of ballot boxes came around the womenfolk had developed complete apathy towards elections. So, they decided never to vote and they are still adamant about sticking to their stand,” said Abdul Malin Khan, a village elder.
However, on digging deeper one finds that there is another major reason for such apathy among the womenfolk towards the biggest game of democracy in the world. It is the lack of development post-Independence that has resulted in their indifference towards the electoral process. This is not surprising as the administration has not even granted their modest requests like changing the tehsil and installation of a communal hand pump.
“If some promising candidate comes forth, I will be the first one to take my wife for voting. But the politicians are so thick skinned that they never listen to us and so we never vote” said Maulana Rahim Khan. During the last lok Sabha elections in 2009, only 16 people turned out to vote from this village of 2,000 voters.
“Our MP, Jitin Prasad of the Congress said we should vote. We replied that out of the 16 votes cast from this village in 2009, he received 12, what more could he ask forIJ But netas only see the numbers not the niyat (intentions). The village is still looking for a change in tehsil and a hand pump” said Khan.
Rihana Khatun, gave The Pioneer countless reasons for why she will not cast her vote on April 30, when her relatives from Kasta and Mohammadi, that are part of Dhaurahra constituency will go out to vote.
“Even for simple official work, we have to change three buses to reach Kasta, while the adjoining villages have Gola as their tehsil. The Government officials are so corrupt that to get Rs30,000 as scholarship for those girls of our village who attend college in Gola, we have to pay Rs11,000 as bribe. We mostly grow sugarcane for which the rate was fixed at Rs280 per quintal, while we received only Rs240. Give me one reason as to why I should vote for these cheaters” said an angry Rihana Khatun.
Rafilkul Nisha, a young college student is neither interested in getting registered as a voter nor is she interested in voting. In her own words, her vote will not make any difference to her life. “No matter whom I vote for, my village will remain undeveloped and even to get my mother’s widow pension, I will be required to change three buses to reach Kasta,” she fumed.
Amina Khatun had voted once before her marriage in 1996. “However, when I came here I saw that the women do not vote here. It is a tradition because women believe their fate will not change by casting their votes. They have a point so I joined them too. Also, I heard that the Government has distributed laptops. My son had applied for that but he did not get the laptop. So why should I vote,” she said.