Techies also speak P-language

Jisha Surya

First Published : 29 Mar 2011

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: They may be the most misunderstood people among us. We branded them  apolitical, naive and insensitive without checking what they think about society.
Within the four walls of their company where they spend days and nights, the 30,000-odd techies in the state also lead an active political life, finds a survey.
Politics is no Greek to software professionals working in the Technopark, Kerala’s first IT park, asserts a survey conducted among the employees of Technopark in the past fortnight. The survey, done through Technopark-based websites and online discussion forums, showed that 63 percent are keen to vote in this election.
When 20 percent said they won’t vote this time, 17 percent are yet to take a decision.  Interestingly, 63 percent of techies are in favour of introducing ‘none of the above’ option in the electronic voting machine.
The future of regional parties like Kerala Congress, CMP and JSS seems to be not that bright. Sixty-one percent of techies do not favour regional political parties which do not have a say in the national-level. Renjith, an IT  professional, who organised the survey along with his friends, said the idea first came from the criticism that techies lack political awareness. “From the response we got from the survey, it is clear that techies are well-aware of the political changes and they are close observers of incidents happening in state and national arena,” he said.  ‘’We got an overwhelming response. Techies not only participated in the survey but also posted their comments on the site. The survey was posted in Technopark-based websites such as technoparktoday.com and discussion forums like mytechnopark.com,’’ he said.
Over 653 professionals working in various companies in the Technopark took part in the survey. Interesting comments too have appeared along with the survey.
Techies who are so used to the idea of performance appraisal demand monthly review of government’s performance. “There must be review meetings assessing the performance of the government at the end of every month and this should be disclosed to public through media,” one opined. Practical difficulties in availing of leave force them to suggest that elections should be conducted on Saturday or Sunday. Some see election as a process of selecting lesser of the two evils. One feels that there must be provision to vote for non-contesting leaders whom they believe can help them  save this nation.
Some demand reduction in the serving term. “Let it be any party, nothing will change. I will vote because there should be a change at least in the ruling party. The serving term should be reduced to 2 or at least 3 years for any change to occur,” he adds. Another techie feels politics is not bad, but politicians are. One ridicules the habit of Keralities in selecting the opposition party every next time in a notion that they would be better. Some statements reveal that VS has staunch supporters among the techies too.