No Work, No Vote: The Power Voters Must Use

Recently, during a visit to his constituency in Guna, Madhya Pradesh, a citizen stopped the convoy of Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and complained about a long-pending road. His demand did not invoke caste, religion, nationalism or any of the other vocabulary with which Indian politics is so adept at distracting attention from everyday governance. His simple message was: Build the road, or we will not vote for you.

The viral video shows Mr Scindia objecting to the manner in which the demand was made and asking the citizen to make a request rather than threaten. Yet what happened almost immediately afterwards is revealing: an allocation of about Rs 3 crore for the road was announced, with instructions for the necessary process to be expedited.

Mr Scindia is a long-standing friend of mine, a responsive public servant, and a competent minister. This incident is, therefore, not about him, but about the larger lesson to be derived from this incident. Moreover, one should not draw the simplistic conclusion that the road was sanctioned because of the threat. In fact, reports say that its DPR had been prepared. Mr Scindia’s intentions may, therefore, not be in question.

But the episode nevertheless illustrates something fundamental about democracy which is applicable to all politicians and political parties: the voter is not a supplicant. The politician is not doing the citizen a personal favour by providing a road. The road is not charity. It is public expenditure, financed ultimately by the citizen. The elected representative is an intermediary between the public purse and the public good. The relationship should therefore be one of accountability, not gratitude.

Yet, over time, we have created a political culture in which the citizen frequently approaches the politician with folded hands, as though asking for a favour, while the politician approaches the citizen at election time with folded hands asking for another five years of power. The Guna incident, therefore, raises a larger question: What would happen if Indians systematically adopted a simple principle — no work, no vote? Not as a slogan of anger. Not as a threat of violence. Not as partisan politics. But as a constitutional democratic instrument of accountability.

Imagine a constituency in which citizens prepare a list of 10 basic commitments made by their representatives: the road, the drainage system, the government school, the hospital, the water supply, the streetlights, the public transport, the pollution-control measures, the repair of bridges and the removal of encroachments. Imagine further that each commitment has a deadline, a responsible agency and a publicly verifiable status. And then imagine the electorate saying: we shall judge you on this record. That would be democracy working in an effective manner because a mature and vigilant electorate would be rightly demanding performance as a precondition for votes.

There is, however, an uncomfortable problem. Research suggests that Indian voters have not consistently behaved in this manner. A major study examining roughly 1,80,000 rural roads constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana found that the provision of roads did not translate into greater electoral support for the ruling party. Roads are highly visible public goods and are important to voters, yet their delivery did not produce the electoral support that democratic theory might predict.

Why? The answer cannot simply be that Indians are foolish or gullible. That would be both condescending and wrong. Indian voters are perfectly capable of making sophisticated political calculations. They frequently punish governments and overturn governments. The problem is that performance is only one of the currencies of Indian politics.

Identity is another. Caste matters. Religion matters. Community loyalties matter. National leadership matters. Welfare benefits matter. Political narratives matter. Emotional issues matter. And once elections become a contest between identities and narratives, the broken road outside one’s house can strangely disappear from the ballot box.

This is the great paradox of the Indian voter. We complain furiously as citizens and vote differently as electors. We may curse the pothole every morning and then vote in an election on an entirely different consideration. We may spend hours discussing pollution, corruption or failing civic infrastructure and then allow the electoral conversation to be hijacked by issues that have little connection with the quality of our daily lives. Perhaps politicians have understood this better than citizens have.

There is another difficulty. The task of the citizen is doubly challenging because responsibility is often deliberately fragmented. Who is responsible for the road — the municipality, the MLA, the MP, the state government, the PWD, the development authority? When the drain overflows, who is accountable? When the streetlight does not work, who should be questioned? When pollution rises, which government should answer? The citizen is confronted with an administrative maze; the politician benefits from the confusion.

A good occasion to test the vigilance of the voter will arise in a few weeks when once again the capital will become a laboratory of human due to killing pollution. The air will deteriorate, hospitals and doctors will warn of health consequences, schools will face disruptions, construction restrictions will be imposed, emergency measures will be announced and television studios will rediscover the pollution debate.

Delhi's own Economic Survey records the extraordinary persistence of the problem. During 2025, the city's average PM2.5 concentration was reported at 100 micrograms per cubic metre, while PM10 averaged 209. The government has undertaken repeated action plans, but the tragedy is that no lasting solution has been found, or seriously attempted. If the problem keeps returning year after year, why does this not become an overwhelming electoral issue? With the arrival of spring the urgency diminishes, and so does the anger of the voters. Our criminal amnesia and lack of action allow the government and state governments concerned — because this problem has to be handled holistically by all stakeholders — to get away again.

The solution then is for citizens to become organised to best leverage the power of their vote. “No work, no vote” should not mean that citizens pledge allegiance to one opposing party. It should mean that every party and every representative understands that the voter wants accountability and action, and will use his vote accordingly. That is the missing revolution in Indian democracy.