Grassroots of grief

These people are not asking for nation-building in the abstract but for tangible, everyday necessities

Two weeks remain for the March 5 snap polls, and there is a familiar, suffocating stench of electoral promises in the air. Campaign vehicles, festooned in party flags, have started traversing each constituency, blaring songs of nation-building and unprecedented development. Yet, the campaigns mask a perilous disconnect between the rhetoric of party manifestos and the daily struggles of the people. The recent flurry of election manifestos is, for the most part, a collection of tall tales and hollow assurances, devoid of the issues that determine whether a family in the grassroots eats, drinks, or survives the night.