Memories of a 104-Year-Old Voter

Saraswati Jadhav, who insisted on a photo ID for the recent Maharashtra polls, remembers elections as they used to be once upon a long time ago.

When Saraswati Jadhav, 104 years old, saw her grandson’s voter’s identity card had a photo on it, she made him apply for one for her too. By that simple action, this great grandmother, who lives in a one-room tenement in a transit camp, has catapulted into a public figure. The Election Commission made her its ambassador with the line— ‘If she can do it, why can’t you?’

Saraswati is almost deaf. Her grandson Vinayak acts as an interpreter, whispering questions into her ears. The answers come in pauses through memory which is being taken over by age. She cannot recollect the date when she cast her first vote but it was the next day after a full moon. “A woman was there and I voted for her.” Her family thinks she is referring to Indira Gandhi. Her husband always told her to vote for “the woman” and she always obeyed. 

“Elections were more fun then with the campaigning, the colour and the noise. It was like a festival. Like all women, I would get up early and finish all the housework. I made non-vegetarian food on that day. People from the neighbourhood would go in a large group to the polling booth,” she says. “There used to be long queues there and we would sit down and talk. Husbands could not scold their wives for chatting with each other. In the beginning we did not rush back home, but when they started showing films on TV, we would be in a hurry to return.”

She does not like elections now. She has to wait till someone in her family is free to take her to the polling booth. “If no one is available, then I do not vote as I need assistance to walk. I am scared of the machine (electronic voting machine), I do not know which button to press. I heard it gives (electric) shocks. Someone told me that whatever button I press it will go to the candidate I have in mind,” she says. There is also a reason for her fascination for a photo ID card. “I do not have a house. I need the card with my photo on it to get a house,” she says.

About The Author

Haima Deshpande