'The Great March of Democracy' tells the story of how India holds elections

India’s mighty dance of democracy has begun with the announcement of the elections. Predictably, eyeballs have moved to this mother of all reality shows. This is the season when political debates dominate conversations and news-based programmes move to the top of the entertainment menu. S Y Quraishi’s book couldn’t have been better timed.

It is a welcome addition to India’s incredible electoral hype so full of suspense and surprises. In fact, if you took the element of surprise out of the elections they would turn into a damp squib. Who would ever be excited if the results were a foregone conclusion? In my view, the three most remarkable things about the Indian elections are their unpredictability or suspense, the uncouth exercise of caste, class and criminal power, and a non-violent change of guard in the end. Quraishi’s book covers all these elements and much more.

The edited volume spans seven decades of Indian elections, starting from the first one in 1952, and covers a wide range of subjects from technical and organisational to political, historical, moral and philosophical. The contributors are a galaxy of 26 well-known experts, among them sociologists, political scientists, philosophers, administrators and practising politicians. Sample a portion of the list to get an idea of its diversity: T N Seshan, Mark Tully, Somnath Chatterjee, Bhikhu Parekh, Ratan Tata, Kabir Bedi, Meghnad Desai and Ela Bhatt. The foreword, a succinct one, is by former president Pranab Mukherjee.

 

 

As you start reading the book, the first thing that hits you is that all the essays are short, simply written and jargon-free. The editor deserves special appreciation for restraining fine academic writing to just under ten pages each. Parekh’s “Dialectics of Elections” in four pages flat is a delightful read. He reflects on democracy’s three essential components: elections, deliberations and protests, and concludes that ordinary people vote because the elections give them a sense of dignity in a deeply unequal society. Paul Wallace covers rather concisely the human dimension of winning and losing elections irrespective of ideologies, and Christophe Jaffrelot recounts the Seshan era in a remarkably short essay. The brevity certainly increases the readability of the essays, but the flip side is that some of them conclude a bit too abruptly. It must be said, however, that a short, abrupt article is any day preferable to the tomes of undiluted gravitas we encounter so often.  

The Great March of Democracy: Seven Decades of Indian Elections; Editor: S Y Quraishi; Publisher: Vintage (A Penguin Random House imprint); Pages: 296; Price: Rs 699

Being a former bureaucrat in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Quraishi’s own emphasis is on the technical and administrative side of things. The biggest challenge with conducting elections, after all, is the task itself in a country as big and diverse as India. He roots for constitutional morality, the integrity of institutions and accountability of functionaries and, for all this, his recipe is reforms, course corrections and innovative solutions. Quraishi’s article and his introduction to the volume are dedicated to increasing the stakes of citizens, particularly the poor and the vulnerable, through participation in elections and institutions of democracy.

 

The book is like a sequel to Quraishi’s earlier book on the same subject (An Undocumented Wonder: The Making of the Great Indian Election) but is more focused on processes and preparations, the role of money and muscle power and how to improve the turnout, particularly of young voters. Earlier books by Quraishi and his former colleagues, V S Rama Devi and S K Mendiratta (How India Votes: Election Laws and Practice) have dealt with issues about how to conduct free and fair elections. Another recent book, by Columbia University scholar Milan Vaishnav (When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Politics), scours the underbelly of the electoral system to gather clues about the domination of crime and money power. His article on the same subject covers limited ground but nails the real cost of democracy.  

 

Quraishi, in the present volume, moves to deeper perspectives of foundational ideas, subaltern politics and the path ahead. He peppers it with electoral history, culture and economy. The book has a piece on the depiction of elections in Indian films, from Balraj Sahni-starrer Garm Hava and Dilip Kumar’s Ganga-Jamuna to Vyjayanthimala’s Naya Daur and a host of new releases such as Maqbool and Sarkar. Economist Desai is sure to floor you with his knowledge of Hindi films. Another cracker of an article is by Tully, who rekindles the romance of the radio in the 1980s and his reporting for the BBC of things like rigging (stuffing of ballot boxes) and the (non) seriousness of manifestos. 

 

Tata’s article underlines his characteristic plain-speaking, yet civil, approach on taboo topics like campaign funding and transparency. Despite his admission of deep corruption in the system, Tata is optimistic, pinning his hopes on robust institutions like the Election Commission of India. Activist Bhatt looks at the elections from the perspective of “growth with inclusion” and focuses on the issues of women, workers, Dalits and minorities. Jagdeep S Chhokar takes her point further by invoking the role of civil society, the judiciary and other democratic institutions. 

 

The book underscores the point that “election studies” make for a full-fledged subject in their own right, and can be a rewarding enterprise. It is vital to make sense of the political processes around us. For instance, Yogendra Yadav and Mukulika Banerjee take you to the core issues of representation, quality of leadership and affirmation of citizenship in a rights-based perspective. Yadav’s emphasis is on local realpolitik through things like distribution of patronage, the assertion of dominance by the powerful and the politics of protests by the subaltern groups. 

Among my favourite articles in the volume are by two young scholars, Rahul Verma and Niranjan Sahoo, on electoral forecasting and state funding. Verma shows how political parties strategise through surveys and estimates to improve their vote shares, while Sahoo gives you an insight into the fairness and efficacy of public financing of elections. These and many more articles will enhance your understanding of elections far beyond the political shadowboxing one is so used to watching on TV. And if you are one of those political diehards who need to counter media frivolity with serious stuff, this book is for you. 

The reviewer is director and chief executive, Common Cause