The Gypsy Voters Of Democrazy

SHE is bustling about in her hostel room, anxiously doing the last-minute checks— setting her wet slippers against the wooden chair, brushing her shoes, pulling the floral bed sheet to a neat, wrinkle-free spread, switching offthe fan, and revisiting her handbag for the phone, charger and wallet.

- Salik Ahmad

Rimpi Borah, 28, is almost done, but for a sprig of perfume, her summery favourite. She moves towards the door with the keys and rechecks the PNR of her flight to Guwahati. Well, she has always been meticulous but never this skittish. Pardon her. This young woman is headed home—Golaghat, Assam—to participate in the mahakumbh of democracy. She is travelling 2,200 km to vote on April 11.

Ask this PhD student from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, why she is making all the effort and she responds, “Why not?” She thinks it was a serious mistake to not have voted in the 2014 general elections. “I foolishly thought a different government would hardly change things. But how wrong I was! Now I’ve seen what damage a government can do,” she says, sitting on a bench on the leaf-littered JNU campus, waiting for the cab.

It’s not hard to guess she is not a fan of the ruling party and equally easy to deduce why. “Earlier, I used to tell people with pride that I study in JNU; but not anymore. Fear has set in. Once I was returning to my hostel and the cab driver started telling me how JNU is a den of terrorists. It was late in the evening and I was scared,” she says, blaming branding JNU students as anti-national with ‘doctored videos’.