It is election time, and political parties are busy releasing their election manifestos. How many of these manifestos contain what we want it to contain? How many of us have played a part in shaping these manifestos? How many of these manifestos represent our desires, our voice?

As citizens in a democracy, it is time we made our voice heard! Let our responsibility not stop at bringing political parties to power; let us also participate in shaping policies, and deciding our own destiny. Let us pen down our manifesto – our own wish-list for the next Government. Let us bring in our desires – great and small. Being a country with great diversity, our wishes will not be homogenous; at times they may even be contradictory. Our manifesto will not hide these contradictions; we will celebrate the differences among us.

By, creating our own Citizen’s manifesto during this election, we are deepening our democracy. The Citizen’s manifesto may only be the voice of the netizens, but we are paving the way for greater inclusion of citizen’s voice in the governance agenda. So, get writing, and when the new Government is formed, we will send them our own Manifesto – our wish-list for the Government in power.

“We, the citizens of India, being part of a sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic, on this day of 2009, do hereby enact and give to ourselves this Citizen’s Manifesto…….