From a principle to a right

The success of the 1951 general election in terms of providing representation to India in all its complexity was crucial to the stability of the then-young constitutional framework

How India Became Democratic

Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise

Ornit Shani

Viking

256 pages; Rs 499

In the almost 70 years since India’s Constitutional framework came into effect, we have come to take its most radical and influential departure from the past, the universal franchise, for granted. It was far from certain in the years leading up to 1950 that Indians — largely illiterate and crushingly poor — would all be given equal access to the ballot box. That, eventually, India’s founding generation managed to ensure that all Indian citizens had equal political rights in law and in practice was hugely