<b>Kanika Datta:</b> A vote is more than worth the candle

SWOT

The outburst against politicians by articulate and vocal sections of India’s middle and upper middle class after the terror attacks in Mumbai was both depressing and interesting to witness.

Affluent Indians tend to discuss politics like the British discuss the weather. So the same fashionably cynical conversations about the general uselessness and venality of the political class could have been heard anytime this past 20 years or so in drawing rooms, boardrooms and page 3 parties. The twitterings of anguish on websites and Facebook are but extensions of this tendency.

The righteous diatribes against politicians after 26/11, however, are at odds with middle class and affluent India’s increasing abdication from the very process that could influence the quality of politicians: elections.

Several observers have suggested just this these past two weeks — not least Milind Deora, Lok Sabha MP from Mumbai South, in Business Standard’s “Debate” section on Wednesday and from readers’ letters. But a thought-provoking excellent essay by Christophe Jaffrelot* tellingly demonstrates the anomaly between the complaints of well-off Indians and their electoral participation.

Here are some very quick facts from Jaffrelot’s detailed essay:

 

Between 1977 and 2004, urban India’s participation in general elections fell from 61.4 per cent to 53.1 per cent. In that same period, rural India’s participation rate grew from 57.2 per cent to 58.9 per cent. As Jaffrelot wrote: “The cities of India vote less because the urban middle class votes less.” 
 

A CSDS Data Unit survey showed that 59 per cent of very poor people said they had voted in the last general election against 57 per cent for the very rich. 
 

Taking the 2003 Delhi state elections as an example, the gap between the turnout of the very poor and very rich was a significant 20 percentage points.

Jaffrelot points out that this voting pattern is at variance with what happens elsewhere. “In most democracies — if not all — electoral absenteeism is positively correlated with social and educational backwardness,” he writes.

In the US, for example, the richer people are, the more they vote. Quoting official statistics, Jaffrelot shows that almost 64 per cent of those who earned less than $10,000 did not vote in the 2004 US Presidential election whereas only 22 per cent of those who earned more than $150,000 abstained. The pattern is the same in the UK, from which India has drawn its democratic model.

Why do rich urban Indians vote less? One, perhaps, is a general view that one little vote can hardly change things significantly. Another is the perception (as expressed in TV interviews after 26/11) of the general ineffectiveness and corruption of politicians.

A third, I could add, is plain laziness. Voting requires standing in long queues (even if it’s just once in five years) open to the elements and the addition of an unsightly mark in indelible ink on the left forefinger at the end of the exercise.

Equally, though, India remains a country in which “influence” still counts for a lot — a fact borne out by India’s low ranking in the Index of Economic Freedom. This, in turn, strengthens the notion that “working the system” remains a more effective way of influencing change than lining up at the hustings. So even as well-bred shoulders shudder at the rise of “non-PLU” politicians like Mayawati and Mamata, a sophisticated form of mendicancy persists in the corridors of power.

As we know, this repudiation of democratic duty is quite at odds with India’s electoral history. Mrs Gandhi’s stunning defeat in 1977 showed that elections can change the political landscape — after all, she lost despite a stranglehold on public institutions. Voting trends in the just-concluded Delhi Assembly elections suggest that Sheila Dixit’s third term owes as much to a higher voter turnout as to the fact that more affluent people — who also voted in larger numbers this time — voted for her. Now, whatever the criticisms about her governance, no one can doubt Dixit’s personal integrity. Ergo: if affluent Indians want honest and reasonably impactful politicians, they can always vote for them.

Educated Indians take great pride in the fact that India is the world’s largest democracy. At Davos a few years ago, the CII trumpeted the fact that India is “the world’s fastest-growing democracy”. India’s democratic process is widely sold as the key positive differentiator with China. India’s middle class is also becoming a growing and powerful economic constituency. As post-26/11 events showed, this class can have a positive impact on politics and politicians — Home Minister Patil’s removal, after all, was long overdue.

So instead of lighting candles (which poor people purloin to light their electricity-less shacks) and venting their distress on the world wide web against the political process, affluent India would do better to queue up at their polling booths in 2009.

* Patterns of Middle Class Consumption in India and China; (ed) Christophe Jaffrelot and Peter van der Veer (Sage, 2008, New Delhi)