India at the Polls
By H. R. VOHRA*
NOW that India's first free elections on the basis of adult franchise have begun, a new democracy is about to be born. At one stroke India, through her new constitu- tion, has traversed the ground which took Britain over 100 years to cover. Every adult man and woman in India will now be able to vote. Thus a voters' list which consisted of a few hundred thousand during the British regime has swollen to 175,000,000. Nearly half India's population is thus enfranchised.' Only a small percentage of these electors, however, is literate.
On the executive machinery now falls the onus of ensuring fair and free elections. The task is so enormous, novel and unprecedented that it will take India- about seven months to complete elections which in Britain are normally over in a day.
The total number of seats to be filled by direct elections is 3,772. Of these 489 are for the House of the People, equivalent to the House of Commons. The rest represent seats for State Legis- latures. No fewer than 28 States constitute the Union of India, not all of which are equally treated under the constitution. Some of them, belonging to the former Princely India, have not even seen an election to a local body.
Even before the constitution had been finally adopted, delimitation of constituencies and enrolment of the unbelievably large number of voters was conscientiously put in hand.
Delimitation followed certain constitutional precepts. Important among them was the salutary direction that, so far as practicable, the size of the electorate for each seat in the House of the People shall be the same throughout India ; every citizen thus counting equally with every other citizen. There must be at least one member for every 750,000 of the population and not more than one for 500,000. The minimum population which can return a member to a State Legislative Assembly has been fixed at 75,000.
Nearly 630,000,000 ballot papers have been printed at the Government Printing Press at Nasik, which has borne the brunt of the colossal election printing order.
About 175,000 polling booths will have to be established, and hundreds of thousands of election officials have been trained to superintend the elections, as each polling-station will require a Presiding Officer as well as one or more assistants. No State has the requisite administrative resources to conduct polling in a single day. Some will take as much as seven days to cover the entire ground. States have, therefore, been divided into sectors, and the same set of officials will move from sector to sector to complete the process. Nor is any State competent to face the problem of law and order which might arise were elections held simultaneously over the entire area. This is another justification for spacing -them out.
But perhaps the principal reason is the geographical factor, for in January, when some States hold their elections, the Himalayan States will be snowbound. That is why a beginning had to be Made on October 25th with Himachal Pradesh, which borders on Tibet and Kashmir. Likewise, the last to go to the polls will be some mountainous districts of Uttar Pradesh, which has a long border contiguous with Nepal and contains some of the highest Himalayan peaks. In fixing polling-dates in other States, harvest arrangements had to be taken into account, for farmers are then too busy with their agricultural pursuits to worry about politics, and the harvest-time in India differs from State to State.
The prevailing illiteracy of voters has imposed its own peculiar problems, which are being boldly solved. Many rural voters have probably never handled a pen or pencil. To ask them to make a cross on the ballot-paper against a name, which, in any case, they cannot read, would be unfair. If they sought assistance from the polling-staff, the secrecy of the ballot would be destroyed, so marking of ballot-papers has been given up. Instead, every candidate will have a ballot-box at each polling- station. It will carry prominently the candidate's distinctive * Assistant Editor of The Statesman (Calcutta). symbol. Even the illiterate voter will be able to identify the box of the candidate he favours. Into it he will slip the unmarked ballot paper. The symbols assigned are easily distinguishable— a hut, a plough, a bird or a tree.
While the problem arising from illiteracy is thus fairly easily solved so far as the technique of voting is concerned, the candi- dates, who have to make ,themselves and their parties known to a large and scattered mass of voters, have a strenuous time in store for them. No one yet fully knows what adult franchise implies -in terms of candidates' labours and expenses. Some are already beginning to regret the introduction of adult franchise. Individual canvassing of votes is altogether out of the question. The spoken word must count for more than the printed appeal. Already the countryside in India is buzzing with political speeches, and the simple illiterate voter must be a most puzzled man, deserving of sympathy. His traditional wisdom, it is to be hoped, will come to his rescue. He has never needed to draw upon it more. He will, however, be saved the Englishman's doubtful privilege of listening to radio speeches by party leaders for All-India Radio, being purely a Government concern, has decided to close its doors equally firmly on all parties. This negative neutrality, it is explained, was necessary in the face of a multiplicity of parties whose conflicting claims to radio time would have been impossible to satisfy.
Nearly a score of All-India parties have entered the fray to contest the continued rule of the India National Congress, which, despite its diminished reputation, still has many advantages over its rivals. For one thing it is widely known. 'Having played the leading role in the struggle for political freedom under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, it continues to have great prestige. It is the only party whose financial and organisational resources enable it to contest every single seat. Pandit Nehru, who is its President, in addition to being Prime Minister of India, is respected for his ability and integrity, and there is no other leader whose name attracts bigger crowds. His independent foreign policy, his liberal treatment of minorities, his emphasis on the secular nature of the State and his hatred of communalism have helped to shape the Congress manifesto, which stands by these principles as well as the newly evolved five-year plan for improving India's standard of living.
The Socialist Party's programme, as everywhere else, promises nationalisation of the .means of production and removal of landlords from the rural scene. The party is critical of India's membership of the Commonwealth, and advocates the creation of a third bloc of Powers to act as a buffer between the two existing ones. To Communists the party is immovably opposed. The Communist Party itself has staged a convenient strategic reversal to take part in the elections. Having waged a violent campaign against the Government in Hyderabad and elsewhere for the last few years, it has now withdrawn the campaign " unconditionally,' without, of course, renouncing its belief in violence. Some basic features of the party's proclaimed programme are abolition of landlordism without compensation, land to the tillers without payment, confiscation of feudal property, nationalisation of British capital and India's withdrawal from the Commonwealth. It also wants to replace the present Government by a " People's Democratic Government," whatever that may mean. - The Hindu Mahasabha and the newly formed Jan Sangh have similar, though not identical, aspirations. Both. seek revocation - of India's partition by " constitutional " or " peaceful means." Another party worth mentioning is the Praja Party of Congress seceders who claim to be truer Congressmen than those belonging to the Official Congress Party. They oppose controls, wish to see India divided linguistically and promise to set up " a good clean and efficient Government." Other parties are too unim- portant to call for mention here. A study of the manifestos shows that they are more in the nature of party aspirations than of programmes. Differences of outlook there no doubt are, but in most cases they have not taken the shape of definite policies. This does not mean that a change in Government will make little difference. It will make all the difference in .the world, much more pronounced probably than it would be in England. where opposing parties are agreed on certain fundamentals. Whether India marches forward, following a scientific outlook on life, or returns to a culture of the distant past depends upon it. The future of minorities is at stake. So are. India's association with the Commonwealth and her relations with her neighbours, par- ticularly with Pakistan. There are those who question the wisdom of relying for so much on so many, 85 per cent. of whom are still, unfortunately, illiterate and steeped in religious prejudices. Others take pride that India should have so boldly committed herself to a democratic way of life which in due course, after inevitable mistakes, is likely to advance the cause of freedom and progress. Only the future can say who is right.
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