India’s general elections commenced this week. This year’s elections are being held from April 19 to June 1, with results being declared on June 4. Approximately 970 million Indians out of a population of 1.4 billion are eligible to vote. What a mammoth undertaking for the world’s largest constitutional democracy, with the largest electoral project. How did we get here?
First, what are elections? The word “elections” comes from the Latin “eligere”, which means “to pick out”. The commencement of the 2024 national elections in India provides us with the opportunity to consider this relatively contemporary concept of one citizen, one vote. This right of “one citizen, one vote” is not one that has existed from time immemorial. Nor is it synonymous with having a functioning and enduring Constitution.
For instance, the United States, whose Constitution was adopted in 1787, initially granted the right to vote only to white men with property. At the time of the birth of the nation, women, African Americans and Native Americans, amongst others, did not have the right to vote. It was through the 15th amendment to the US Constitution that African American men got the right to vote. Yet, their franchise was burdened by having to pay poll taxes and pass literacy tests.
In 1920, white women won the right to vote. African American and Native American women would have to fight for many more years to secure the right to vote. In 1971, by the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the voting age was reduced to 18 years.
How did India get here? India’s own journey to universal adult franchise was a clear and unbroken one. It did not create classes of citizens who could or could not exercise their franchise. In the Constituent Assembly, which seated those who drafted the Constitution from 1946 to 1950, there were some who were disconcerted by the challenges of a franchise for all Indians. Some members, like M Thirumala Rao, pointed to the difficulties of franchise without literacy.
On November 23, 1949, Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar made one of the more thoughtful interventions, arguing that for a broad-based democracy like the one India wanted to establish, any property or literacy qualifications would exclude a large number of the “labouring classes and women-folk”.
Optimistically, Ayyar hoped that large-scale universal suffrage would have the effect of “rooting out corruption”, and this would be an incidental return on “democratic elections”. He also lauded the dismantling of communal electorates established previously by the British, by independent India’s first government.
Ayyar made the point that a communal electorate and democracy cannot coexist, since the former prevents “the free growth of democracy on a healthy and sound basis”.
India’s ambitious universal adult franchise project, imagined and cemented during the harsh and violent years of Partition and nation formation, would come to fruition with the first general elections held between October 25, 1951 and February 21, 1952. It was the largest election ever conducted at the time, with over a sixth of humanity casting their votes. A total of 173,212,343 or roughly 173 million voters were registered.
The Constitution has always located the security of universal franchise in the “superintendence, direction and control of elections to be vested in an Election Commission.” Importantly, the Election Commission controls the preparation for and the conduct of parliamentary and legislative assembly elections in India. Therefore, a neutral, impartial and alert Election Commission is the heart of the project that is India’s electoral democracy.
The year 2024 is not just one of general elections in India. It’s the year for elections all over the world. The countries that hold over half the world’s population will conduct their elections this year.
The year commenced with Bangladesh, followed by Pakistan holding their elections. In March, Russia conducted its elections, with Vladimir Putin, rather predictably, retaining his position.
The United Kingdom, United States and South Africa will hold their elections over the course of this year. The United States will have two elderly candidates — sitting President Joe Biden and erstwhile President Donald Trump — take on each other for the presidency.
A Reuters report quotes the Institute of International Finance as stating that the “tsunami” of 2024 elections “could add to a record glut of global debt estimated to have hit $310 trillion by the end of 2023.” It adds that by the end of 2024, “countries accounting for over 60 per cent of the world’s economic output, and more than half of its population would have voted.”
Haiti, Indonesia, Cambodia, Iran (with an extremely low turnout of 41 per cent), Portugal, Slovakia, Senegal, Kuwait, South Korea and the Solomon Islands have also already conducted or will hold elections over the course of 2024. The one exception is Ukraine — it was scheduled to hold elections in March, but could not do so due to the conflict with Russia.
With voting in phase one of India’s election completed, I wonder what our founding fathers and founding mothers would have made of the electoral democracy that is India? Are we what they envisaged us to be?
The writer is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court
