Rotarians gain insight into the U.K. General Elections 2015
Lakshmi Kaul
A journalism and human rights graduate, Lakshmi Kaul specialises in development communications and social media campaigning. From designing and delivering focussed development research campaigns internationally and locally, she has combined the use of traditional and new media for social messaging.
Having contributed immensely to the UK General Elections by mobilising and building awareness among the Indian diaspora in Britain about the elections and voting, Lakshmi led the print and social media campaign #YourVoteMatters, for the Conservative party’s Conservative Friends of India team and made valuable contribution to the party and its understanding of the Indian diaspora and their needs.
2015-06-09-June_9_to_June_15In recent years, she has evolved as a culture ambassador and community worker. She leads a culture initiative in the UK – SPIC MACAY (Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth), which is a youth movement that is 37 years old and was founded in India by Dr. Kiran Seth, recipient of Padmashree award. She is on the Advisory Board of the Nehru Centre, (Indian High Commission’s culture centre).
Having organised a series of classical music and dance programmes for students of universities like Cambridge, Oxford and Warwick, she continues to expand the reach of interactive, lecture-demonstration style programmes and workshops to more universities, colleges, schools and local communities and neighbourhoods. “My dream is to see heritage projects and clubs in neighbourhoods in the UK and Europe. The tradition of Gurukul has almost become extinct and one sees a rise of youtube and skype lessons. The discipline of a Guru-Shishya parampara ought to be restored to its original glory”, says Kaul.
Cultural identity and connecting to your roots remain the underlying themes of the work undertaken by her. She is the founder of Kashmiri Pandits Cultural Society, UK, (www.kpcsuk.org) and has created a strong lobby and voice for the Kashmiri Hindus in this country supported by various individuals and community groups. She continues to engage with various community members in building the communities stronger via various cultural, social and professional initiatives.
Being a woman herself and a mother, Kaul encourages women of all age groups to bring out their strengths and use them for their own development as well as community development. “Before doing anything for the world, first do something for yourself. Start small, begin with yourself”, she adds. Having encouraged and inspired women, especially stay-at-home mums to take active interest in entrepreneurship, local leadership and community roles, she initiated the Start-ups and Small Business Summit that provides a platform to new businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs. Passionate about social enterprise, Kaul is currently working on a micro-credit model for housewives aspiring to
be entrepreneurs.
She says, “My heart and soul are in community work and people are my strength. I dream of building several role models and leaders in the local community”.
At last week’s meeting, Kaul expressed her honour at being invited to speak to the members of the Rotary Club of Bombay. She started by discussing the recent general elections in London. She said, “In the general elections 2015, you must have read about the British Indian community that was considered to be the game changer. British Indians form only about 3.5 percent of the British population so one wonders how they could be the game changers being such a small minority, but they were. Not only them, but several other minority communities have leaned votes towards the elected government. What was fascinating to me was the process of the elections and the process of politics. My association with the Conservative parties or any political outfit has been about seven to eight months old and in this short period, I have managed to establish contact with many parliamentarians, especially female parliamentarians. As much as these women amaze me, I still believe that there are not enough women out there running for parliamentary seats.”
She also shared moments from her social media campaign to encourage people to vote in the UK. She said, “When we would knock on doors, the women would ask us to speak with their husbands as they claimed that politics did not concern them or was not their cup of tea. These were young and educated women and that hit me hard. To change this was the whole point of me getting involved; make these women understand the process of elections and to get them involved in it.
Kaul went on to give a brief overview of what the elections were like for her. She said, “There were a total of 650 seats in the House of Commons. We needed roughly 326 to form a majority government. Although the overall turnout was not so bad, there were a lot less people voting this year making excuses such as not knowing where the polling stations were or that the stations were too far from where they lived. There were also a lot of proxy votes. Proxy voting is where a member of a decision-making body delegates their voting power to other members of the same body to vote in their absence. Interestingly, while I was at the polling station, a lot of people were asking me why we cannot have e-voting or an app through which you could cast your vote securely on your phone in the comfort of your home. We live in the digital age after all and now the Electoral Board will have to figure that out. This was also the first general election to use individual voter registrations instead of the household registration because of which a lot of women and children were being left out. This was a good turn of events because every member of the family has a different political ideology and should have the right to cast their individual vote.”
Kaul then spoke about the 2015 General Elections and the role communication and interaction with the voters plays for a candidate. “This year, after much controversy, a seven-way leaders’ debate was held with all the party leaders. A very interesting procedure that follows is the discussion that the candidates get to participate in with the voters where they are posed several questions on their ideology, public policy, how they plan to deliver their campaign promises and other such things. I personally ran a dedicated campaign asking people to vote, irrespective of who they were planning to vote for. I also ran an online campaign called #YourVoteMatters which urged everyone to get out on Election Day and vote for a candidate, irrespective of who it was going to be. A lot of senior ministers and candidates supported us and as a result of this, we saw a lot more youngsters and women come out and cast their vote which was a good start. Once someone develops the will to cast a vote, the next step is to want to know more about the person they are voting for and this is how one gets initiated into the process. It is important to invoke that interest and generate that urge in them to make their vote count.”
In conclusion, she spoke about the importance of the right to vote and how it should be treated as an important duty by every citizen. “One of the most important messages to get across to people in such a campaign is to inform them that a lot of people across the world, a lot of communities do not even have the right to vote. This right can be seen as a privilege and not just a luxury. In various parts of the world, people are still struggling for their right to vote and they should make use of this opportunity and treat it as a responsibility. It is the power that the people have to bring a government together.”