Time and again, when a politician has inaugurated any large project or a scheme for citizen, it has caught all local and national headlines, often regarding the project as a “gift” to the community. I object to such development works or schemes being called “gifts”. I find this term rather insulting. It sounds as if the government is doing something out of kindness and we the poor citizens are helpless without this esteemed favour of theirs.
Some media houses go to the extent of calling such schemes a Diwali bumper gift or mega gift. The government is neither a corporate who will give us any bumper schemes nor a messiah who will doing all the work out of his pocket. All these schemes and projects are borne out of the taxes paid by honest citizens of India. So, I do not see any point in calling these gifts. Our elected representatives should be providing us with development projects and schemes; we don’t vote them to power to merely hear their speeches.
In fact, it is the citizens who have to bear the expense of these politicians. A handsome amount of money is spent on their security, travel, subsidies and other benefits for an elected MP or MLA. All these are borne by us.
The next time you find any such headline in any newspaper or media, strike a blow against it on social media or Twitter. We need politicians and the media to know that we are not seekers of any kind of gestures, we have right on them.
Note: The article was originally posted on the author’s blog here.