Decrypting the ballot

The Verdict:Decoding India’s Elections
 

Prannoy Roy and Dorab R Sopariwala

Penguin Random House, 289 pages, Rs 599

I have been voting regularly ever since I turned 21, long before the little smear of ink became a symbol of political responsibility. Since then, as media has grown so too has political awareness. Consequently, people today are more strident than ever even if the factual basis for their opinions is often shaky.

In this politically-charged and factually-threatened environment leading up to the general elections The Verdict is perfectly timed. It is grounded in a startling array of facts about Indian elections.

There is every reason to be proud of India’s electoral record. Post World War II, during 1945-60, about three dozen countries gained independence. Nearly all failed with democracy. Impoverished India, which often teetered on the verge of starvation after Independence, has stayed the course. You only have to look at the countries nearby to appreciate our unique achievement.

Besides, what a gargantuan exercise an Indian Lok Sabha election is: in 2019, 895 million Indians can vote— of them 130 million for the first time, having turned 18. For perspective, if all these first-timers were a separate nation, they would be the 10th most populous in the world.

The book compels readers to question everything they know about elections. For example, the term “anti-incumbency” (coined by Dorab Sopariwalla, incidentally) is often tossed but is India really anti-incumbency country?

Answer: The period 1952-77 was a pro-incumbency era when in nine out of 10 elections the existing state government was voted back to power. Then, 1977-2002 was the anti-incumbency phase when angry voters threw out seven out of 10 governments. Since 2002, the ruling state government has been re-elected half the time, depending on performance.

The story of women’s role in Indian general elections is both cheering and depressing. From a low start in 1962 (the first year for which a gender breakup is available) the percentage of women voting has shot up from 46.7 to 65.5 per cent in 2014, almost catching up with male voters. (Another oddity: More rural women use their franchise than do urban women.) Even better, the authors reckon that eight of 10 women vote independently of their men.

The depressing bit is that in spite of their assertiveness at the ballot box, the percentage of female MPs in the Lok Sabha has crawled up from five per cent in 1952 to 10 per cent now. This places India at No 146 in terms of women’s representation among 193 nations. This is downright shameful considering we’ve had a prime minister and 16 chief ministers who have been women.

As with the women, so too with the youth. Thanks to demographics, the average age of the voter has been declining: three out of five voters are under 40 years but three out of four MPs are older than that benchmark. This gap between voters and the people who represent them is widening: in 1952 the average age of the MP was 47 years but now that is up to 58 years.

Should we trust predictions? Messrs Roy and Sopariwala rummage through the records of more than 800 opinion polls since 1980 to conclude that polls have got the winner right three times out of four. As the teacher might say, “Not bad but can do better.” The coming elections will generate another rush. Which polls are reliable? The authors give a number of tips, the first of which is that unless the all-India sample is at least 35,000-40,000 respondents, don’t bother. Also dismiss polls that don’t clearly state the methodology or the sample size.

I was captivated by The Verdict,  though I do wish the authors had devoted some space to examining how the mind of the first-time voter has worked in the past. Also, while they have great details on the 65 per cent who vote, a chapter analysing the major reasons why the other 35 per cent do not show up would have been instructive.

Two items will excite the political buff about the 2019 elections:

• In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections the National Democratic Alliance fetched just 38 per cent of the vote (of which the Bharatiya Janata Party got 31) to capture 62 per cent of the seats. This underlines the fragmentation of vote among parties. It takes a smaller percentage of votes to win than ever before. A ruling party could find that it is more rewarding to divide the opposition than to try and increase the number of people voting for itself.

• A combination of two factors determines the victor: one, swing and two, the Index of Opposition Unity (IOU). A one per cent vote swing (from one party or alliance to the competition) in the Lok Sabha can result in 15 seats changing hands.

• Lastly, are Assembly elections good indicators of voting patterns in the general elections to follow? This is of high interest considering that the Congress won in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh less than four months ago. In 13 out of 14 cases the winning party in the Assembly elections does at least equally well if the Lok Sabha elections follow within 12 months. One caveat—in two of the three states the Congress margin of victory was slim.

In parting: read The Verdict. You will learn heaps that is new; and if nothing else it will help you appear smart at dinner conversations and pep up your social media posts. 

The reviewer is a former news journalist and the co-founder of afaqs!, an advertising, marketing and media website