Before elections: “Your vote is precious. We are your servants.”
After elections: “Learn how to request me?”
But the real question is: why is the citizen forced to bargain for a basic public service with his vote in the first place?
Roads within urban areas are fundamentally a municipal function under the 74th Amendment’s framework the Twelfth Schedule explicitly includes “roads and bridges.”
But there’s a catch: municipalities often depend heavily on State transfers and grants because their fiscal powers and resources are limited by the state framework.
So you create elected local governments, give them responsibilities and then leave them financially constrained.
And elected representatives aren't completely powerless either.
MPLADS guidelines explicitly permit MPs to recommend construction of roads, approach roads and link roads. MLA-LAD schemes can also support local infrastructure where the concerned state has such a scheme.
So if a road is genuinely stuck because of administrative or funding failure, the anger should first be directed at the system responsible for getting it built not at a citizen asking for it.
India has achieved political democracy citizens vote, elect representatives and can remove them.
But political democracy without adequate social and economic democracy can produce exactly this scene.
If citizens have to threaten politicians with their vote to get a road, perhaps the problem isn't that citizens are asking for too much.
Perhaps they are asking the political system to deliver what it promised.
Janta bhi matlab ek dum bewakoof hai.
Raja sahab ne election time me khud ko "jan-sevak" aur tumhe "janta-janardan" kya bol diya, tum to khud ko relevant samajh kar accountability maangne lage.
Hadd me raho bhai. Charno me let kar nivedan karna seekho.