Expert Speak India Matters
Published on Apr 26, 2019
Despite having many dysfunctional bureaucratic institutions, no one has questioned the legitimacy of the Election Commission in holding free and fair elections across the country.
Why Indian democracy is underrated

The data backing the Indian elections is simply staggering: 8251 candidates from 464 parties wooing 900 Million voters (83 million first-time voters) for 545 seats in the presence of 11 million poll workers, 4 million electronic voting machines, 1 million polling booths and the world’s largest election, or better yet the largest exercise in democratic history.

India is already at the polls. The media analysis and pollster prognosis are pitting the contest between Prime Minister Narendra Modi versus the disenfranchised rest. The debates range from agrarian ennui to unemployment data to national security concerns, and everything else in between.

Being the cantankerous democracy that India is, the issues are being hotly contested.  Amidst the political brouhaha, it is important to take a step back and reflect on the profoundness of the electoral system in India. Every time India goes to the polls, it is touted as a marvel in democratic history. The volume of voters itself is overwhelming but it is where these voters are, in the most destitute and remote areas and how polling booths are set up in these places.

Amidst the political brouhaha, it is important to take a step back and reflect on the profoundness of the electoral system in India. Every time India goes to the polls, it is touted as a marvel in democratic history.

The Election Commission has declared that no individual should travel more than two kilometers to cast their vote, this if they live in the middle of the Himalayas or in the middle of a dense jungle. Even in the most penurious of populations, India’s voting is electronic. There are no paper votes, punch cards or hanging chads.

Even in the most penurious of populations, India’s voting is electronic. There are no paper votes, punch cards or hanging chads.

Historian and writer Ramachandra Guha in this scintillating talk  spoke about why he thought India was the most fascinating country in the world.

Apropos to the elections now, it is only fair to assess the first elections in India back in 1951-52, which Guha describes as a seminal moment.  Guha says that India is the world’s least likely democracy and an unnatural experiment in the emerging developing world.

There is a clear reason why Guha says this. The history of other proud democracies saw voting granted in various stages. First it was men of property who were allowed to vote, then men who were educated and then voting was granted to women and minorities. The world’s oldest democracy, the United States, epitomises this phenomenon. Right from the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson who wrote all men are equal, were proud slave owners. The Civil Rights movement was still two centuries away.

India on the other hand became independent in 1947, and despite a bloodstained partition that created a Muslim Pakistan, India adopted pluralism and secularism and eschewed from being a singular dominant religious country.

It adopted its first Constitution in 1950 and went to the polls 18 months later.

India adopted universal franchise even when 65 percent of its population were illiterate. This wasn’t a time when ‘poor’ nations experimented with universal franchise when they had issues of severe economic malaise and education deficiency. Even Switzerland, the bastion of western utopia, adopted universal suffrage as late as 1971.

India adopted universal franchise even when 65 percent of its population were illiterate. This wasn’t a time when ‘poor’ nations experimented with universal franchise when they had issues of severe economic malaise and education deficiency.

No wonder Guha, described India as the most “recklessly ambitious as well as ambitiously reckless political experiment in human history”.

India, like most emerging democracies has faced every problem known to most nation states. It’s faced political corruption scandals, natural disasters, rampant poverty, malnutrition and crime but India still finds the resilience to go on.

It is well documented that the country does not have a single national language, instead it has close to 30 indigenous languages (and over 700 dialects) with each officially recognised by the Constitution.

It has been the birthplace of religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and has every other belief system known to mankind.

Statistics don’t accentuate diversity, stories do

So how is it that a nation with no one language, no one religion, no one ethnicity, plagued by all the woes indigenous to emerging economies can actually survive and thrive as a chaotic fractious and simultaneously as a robust democracy that is being spoken about as a potential superpower?

Perhaps, it’s no wonder that The Economist dubbed India’s diversity closer to a continent  (like Europe) than to a country.

Given that India has had every major socio-economic and political hindrance, and further accentuated because of its size, what still makes India a functioning democracy? Why hasn’t a country of its size disintegrated the same way that the former USSR or Yugoslavia did, or even split like Czechoslovakia for that matter?

This itself is a success story -- beyond the hard metrics of India’s economic growth.

Apart from the General Elections of 1951-52, the General Elections of 2004 have been highlighted as a fascinating election and one that epitomises the plurality of Indian democracy.

In 2004, majority of the votes were secured by the Congress-led UPA coalition beating the incumbent BJP-led NDA. What was fascinating then, was that the party head was Sonia Gandhi, a woman of Italian origin and Roman Catholic faith, who made way for a Sikh Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, to be sworn in by a Muslim President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, in a country where 80 percent of its population identify as Hindu. As Shashi Tharoor said, this wasn’t a case of India proving anything to the world, it was a case of India just being itself.

Despite having many dysfunctional bureaucratic institutions, no one has questioned the legitimacy of the Election Commission in holding free and fair elections across the country. Most developing countries that became independent around the mid 20th century, fell prey to tin-pot military dictatorships. In India, unlike neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, the military has by institutional design disallowed from intervening in domestic politics.

Despite having many dysfunctional bureaucratic institutions, no one has questioned the legitimacy of the Election Commission in holding free and fair elections across the country.

The paragon of India’s democracy is seeing that the Supreme Court has never had to intervene. The world’s oldest and most robust democracy, the United States has had its Supreme Court intervene in the vital 2000 elections between George W Bush and Al Gore, courtesy the Florida kerfuffle

India needs little incentive and inspiration to vote, but if ever there was one needed, it should come from citizens such as Shyam Saran Negi, independent India’s first voter in 1951 and at the age of 102, he is likely to be the oldest voter and a believer in democracy since the past seven decades.

Like Shyam Saran Negi and irrespective of what side of the political aisle you find yourself on, voting is remains the elementary job of every citizen of the country.

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Author

Akshobh Giridharadas

Akshobh Giridharadas

Akshobh Giridharadas was a Visiting Fellow based out of Washington DC. A journalist by profession Akshobh Giridharadas was based out of Singapore as a reporter ...

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