The final phase of the nine-phase election involving 814 million voters remains — that is 103 million voters more than the entire population of Europe — is over. More than 1,000 political parties, large and small, were in the fray and there were nearly one million voting booths spread across the country featuring 3.26 million EVMs. Compare this with India’s first general election in 1952, which was also spread over two months but different coloured ballot boxes were used for each candidate, and votes were cast on paper! My own state of Tamil Nadu includes the enterprising Modakurichi Assembly constituency where 1,033 candidates contested in 1996. The lowest voter turnout in recent times was three in a polling station in Bomdila, Arunachal Pradesh, and in Gujarat, one booth manned by five people was set up for one voter named Mahant Bharatdas.
The quantum and diversity of election trivia in India is as fascinating as it is mind-boggling. But clearly the most important achievement of all is that our wonderful, chaotic democracy has conducted yet another general election without major incidents of violence or sabotage marring the process, and for this the credit should go squarely to the people of India who have defied a range of obstacles — from the terrifying terrorist threats in some places to searing summer heat — to come out and cast their vote. The Election Commission too deserves great credit for having steered our country through a very challenging and logistic defying process.
The electioneering process was marred by many unsavoury incidents, from ink attacks and hate speeches to open threats, communal pleas and misuse of money power. But the peaceful and successful conduct of the elections themselves is yet another tribute to the enduring, vibrant, responsive, articulate democracy that is India.
The most important and indeed landmark takeaway for me in the watershed that is Election 2014 is not just the advent of the social media, but a far more fundamental development. The Indian voter has realised that democracy is not just about elections, or going from election to election, but also the period of governance between elections. This is a genuinely transformational development if indeed it translates into votes as it appears it will. This will be the singular development which will ensure the continuance of Indian democracy when all democracies around us appear to be failing.
The story of post-colonial countries and the different paths they have taken are too well known to require great elaboration. Pakistan and India, after the British left, have gone down very different paths, and while Pakistan with its ISI and omnipresent Army is a failed democracy, our own democracy is, with all its warts, robust and strong. China is completely different and any comparison would have to be part of a much larger discourse than the one attempted here. Sri Lanka has done well on many indices, but the question of its majoritarian ethnocracy, especially with its resonance in Tamil Nadu, is still troublesome for its democratic credentials.
While other post-colonial countries may attach different priorities to the relationship between religion and politics or the importance of unity in diversity, the fact is that India, with regular, free elections, secularism, federalism, a free and very aggressive press and a constructive judiciary is the best example of the transition from colonial to democratic rule.
A recent article in the Economist quotes the Freedom House think tank as saying that in the year 2000, perhaps 120 countries, or 63 per cent of the world’s total, were democracies. However, since 2000, democracy around the world has been continually challenged, and now, although nearly 40 per cent of the people of the world live in democracies, the global advance of democracy “has come to a halt, and may even have gone into reverse”. The Economist article reiterated that the global economic crisis of 2007-08 did great psychological damage to the idea of democracy. The failure of the Arab Spring to galvanise democracy in West Asia has been another setback, along with other developments in Venezuela, Ukraine and Argentina.
The United States, popularly perceived as the epitome of democracy, almost defaulted on its debts twice, and lobbies and allegations of gerrymandering have battered the dream of an equal and inclusive democracy in the United States.
The EU too has seen many challenges to democracy recently, like the growth of fundamentalist Nazi-style parties.
Further, all over the world including in India, there is a democratic deficit — a growing hostility between the governed and the political class — which can lead to disastrous consequences if allowed to intensify or deepen. Sometimes the hostility leads to extremely strange and adverse consequences.
The Economist once again talks of how, in 2010, Iceland’s Best Party promised to be openly and transparently corrupt and actually won enough votes to co-run Reykjavik’s city council. And in 2013, 25 per cent of the Italian electorate voted for a party founded by a popular comedian named Beppo Grille. This is cynicism at its worst, but it is not very funny when counterpoised with the fact that governments are elected to govern and deliver development, not to entertain or shock.
This worrying chasm between voters and the political class has to be closed, and clearly it is the political class which has to walk the extra mile to do it. I continue to maintain that our democracy is our single greatest achievement since Independence. It is certainly not perfect. There are many shortcomings. But we must remember to keep it dynamic and robust so that it grows, deepens and expands according to the needs of our people.
Above all, we should remember that our most basic objective is to maintain our glorious unity in diversity, our humanity, our determination to preserve individual freedom and inclusiveness along with development. As elections draw to a close, and the results are awaited, it is time for every Indian to rededicate himself or herself to the non-negotiable fundamentals of our democracy.
The author is a political activist. The views expressed in this column are her own.
