THE YOUTH WILL CAPTURE THE BOOTH
This General Election, young aspirational first-time voters may finally force political parties to stamp out criminality and money power in politics
For the last eight years, first as election commissioner, subsequently as the CEC and then after my retirement, I have addressed dozens of student audiences all over India. I’ve always been enriched by my interactions with them. Many excellent suggestions have resulted. To give just one example, the suggestion to recognise transgenders as a separate category on the electoral rolls came from two students at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, and, a week later, from a trainee at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. When we decided to implement this, little did I realise that it was to become a significant human rights issue. Now other election commissions are following our example.
In my recent interactions with student bodies, I have noticed a distinct shift from a sometimes apathetic attitude to voting (Why should we vote? What difference can one vote make? Politicians are all the same) to a more proactive approach. In the last two years, whenever I have asked students if they have an election card, most hands are raised. When I follow up by asking them whether they will vote in the upcoming elections, a sea of hands goes up.
In recent years, the Election Commission has been increasingly proactive in creating awareness, particularly among young voters. In order to increase their involvement in the electoral process, national icons like M.S. Dhoni, Saina Nehwal and M.C. Mary Kom, and indeed even former president APJ Abdul Kalam, have been enlisted to exhort them that their vote is precious and that it counts. These efforts helped result in a much higher youth turnout in the Assembly elections in 2013.
I am witness to a perceptible shift in attitudes, indeed to a level of awareness and criticality that I did not see before. This might well be called the Aam Aadmi effect. At an interaction at Manipal University in mid-January, the questions the students raised were as hard-hitting as they were informed. They were particularly troubled about candidates with criminal antecedents. A few days later, I received a similar volley of questions from largely young people at the Jaipur Literature Festival who pointed out that money power had become the dominant factor in our elections. More recently, an ex-army officer studying at Pondicherry University complained that he had never been enabled to cast his vote through our postal ballot system. I informed him about proxy voting; he had never heard of it. Another student sitting across the aisle offered a solution. He said that people being enlisted into the armed forces should, at the time of recruitment, be asked to fill in a form the name of their proxy. And just a few days ago, a hall full of students at Delhi University expressed their collective disquiet about the many ills that have developed in our polity, including the fielding of undesirable candidates on the sole criteria of “winnability”, as well as on the phenomenon called “paid news”.
As India goes to polls to elect the 16th Lok Sabha, the electoral list has swelled by a record 100 million voters since the 2009 General Elections. An estimated 20 million voters are in the age group of 18 to 22. Almost 180,000 first-time voters in the 18 to19 year age bracket have been added to every parliamentary constituency. This time, having made an effort to get their names on the electoral rolls, I believe they will defy their earlier lethargy and vote for those they believe can make a difference to their young lives in terms of educational and employment opportunities. The traditional politics of caste and religion will be less relevant to them, particularly in our towns and cities.
Prior to the 2009 elections, the Election Commission of India was able to considerably strengthen our democratic process by enabling 580 million voters, or about 82 per cent of our voting population, to obtain election cards, called EPIC. It was a mammoth achievement, considering that when we began our EPIC drive in 2005, there weren’t many takers. We persisted. After 2009 General Elections, we decided to aim even higher, at 100 per cent enrolment, and especially focus on youth and women. The drive was pursued through 2011-13, and as a result we now witness this gigantic increase of 100 million voters.
After last December’s Assembly elections in five states, I ran into a contestant who had been a two-time winner in his state. Polling had just ended and counting was yet to take place. Would he achieve a hat-trick, I asked. His answer surprised me. He felt he had lost decisively. I asked him why he was so pessimistic. His reply was telling. In the last Assembly elections, he said, there had been a ‘normal’ 60 per cent turnout. This time, over 80 per cent came out to vote. Most noticeable, he said, were thousands of young voters. He felt he had been unable to connect with them. He was proved right, for he lost decisively.
This may well be the defining story of this election. Youth participation is certainly influenced by the appeals of icons and heroes they hold in esteem. But this time, the ‘negatives’ of money power and, particularly, criminality have also affected them. The question most frequently asked of me in all my recent campus interactions related to law-breakers becoming lawmakers.
Over the last 15 years, the Election Commission has urged successive governments to amend the law to disqualify those against whom a court of law has framed charges for heinous crimes—murder, attempt to murder, rape, dacoity—punishable by imprisonment of five years and more. The Commission has held this to be a reasonable restriction. However, a Parliamentary Standing Committee rejected this on grounds that political parties in power are likely to abuse their authority to foist false cases on their opponents! Fortunately, in an order of July 10, 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a law that provided immunity to MPs and MLAs from resigning upon conviction simply by filing an appeal to a higher court within 90 days. And just a few days ago, on March 11, the apex court directed all courts that criminal cases against MPs and MLAs must be completed within a year. Unfortunately, there is much ground to be traversed in the implementation of this path-finding order, for our most sought-after (and expensive) lawyers are also those whom our politicians appoint to prolong such cases from reaching finality.
We can only wait and watch with interest over the next few days how many tainted persons are given tickets by political parties on the ground of “winnability”. It will, however, be of greater interest to see if young, first-time voters cast their votes in favour of clean candidates who strike the right chord with their aspirations. That may well turn out to be 2014’s big story.