The country has hosted in the past a galaxy of statesmen, philosophers, orators, authors, academics, monks and also luminaries remembered for their lyrically expressed words of wisdom in many languages with or without script. Whatever is presently available in libraries of institutions and personal possessions of the country’s literati may be a small part of their contributions spanning several centuries. Although the times they lived is vastly different from our days on many counts, particularly emphasis on the principle of simple living and high thinking, the message of tolerance in a society marked by wide diversity is more relevant than at anytime in the past, considering the present scenario of public speakers with mass following sowing seeds of hatred and violence, purposefully dividing the people at large from the angles of their faiths, beliefs, tongues, ethnicity, regions and economic factors. Their voices, louder as they are tending to drown the voice of good samaritans, have left aam janata dumb-founded.

The genre of leaders, supported by the coterie of their mass following, not only take refuge under the land’s Constitution, highlighting only the provisions that suit their cause but also quote lines attributed to the land’s past social reformers, prompting one to liken their piety to the idiom Devil quoting the scripture.

The goings on with vote-seekers dominating the scene are accepted as inevitable by the people with a sense of helplessness, but yet there appears to be a silver line amidst dark clouds as it were, considering a news that a group of writers have stepped in with an appeal for sanity, never mind the matter appearing only on an inside page of a widely-read daily. According to the news, over 200 writers across the country have issued a signed appeal saying, “Let us vote against hate politics. Lets us vote for an equal and diverse India.” They have written in different languages including Kannada and English, on behalf of Indian Writers’ Forum.

The writers have forewarned the people at large to be wary of the flock of vote-seekers hell-bent on dividing the country and hurting aam janata’s simple wish of living as full-fledged citizens of free India. It is another matter that the wily vote-seekers continue to rampage and the masses refuse to wake up, leaving the writers with their voice in wilderness.