It’s dif­fi­cult to match the magic that elec­toral par­ti­san pol­i­tics can play upon the peo­ple. Without grap­pling with the ques­tion about cri­sis in peas­antry, with­out even touch­ing the hot-but­ton is­sue of un­em­ploy­ment, with­out talk­ing about the is­sue of Pun­jab’s debt of Rs 3 lakh crore, Pun­jab’s elec­toral po­lit­i­cal class was able to drag you down to the near­est polling booth, one by one, and got you to cast your vote.

Since that evening, the sit­u­a­tion is be­com­ing even more com­plex. Now you have the is­sue of BBMB on your hands, the Cen­tre has passed the Dam Safety Act, ef­fec­tively shov­ing you out of con­trol over your river wa­ters and dams, and the Sikh rad­i­cals ver­sus Left fault lines have only deep­ened.

And yet elec­toral pol­i­tics has got­ten you twisted around its lit­tle fin­ger. Your draw­ing-room con­ver­sa­tions are not about what’ll hap­pen to you, to your peo­ple, to your Pun­jab, but who will be the next CM, and who will be able to buy any MLAs his party falls short by.

You are wait­ing for the EVMs to beep on March 10. It is lovely to watch your in­no­cent faith in democ­racy, but not very heart­en­ing if this is the shape of democ­racy.

What will hap­pen on March 10? Well, that’s an im­por­tant ques­tion, and it shows you are cu­ri­ous.

Let’s ask a dif­fer­ent one, and a bet­ter one.

What will hap­pen af­ter March 10? That’s a much more im­por­tant ques­tion, and it shows you care.

In con­ver­sa­tion with po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, aca­d­e­mi­cian, au­thor, re­searcher, ex­pert on Dalit pol­i­tics and an­a­lyst Prof Ronki Ram; and econ­o­mist, aca­d­e­mi­cian and po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor Dr Paramjit Singh from Pan­jab Uni­ver­sity, Chandi­garh.