Insights about the 1999 Indian elections
Sandeep Krishnamurthy
I visited India in
September of this year. At this time,
elections that would determine the next leader of the nation were in
progress. A failed vote of confidence
had brought the Hindu nationalist led coalition crashing necessitating the
elections.
The milieu in which this
election was being conducted was dramatically different from the previous
one. The recent nuclear tests of India
and Pakistan and the skirmishes between the two at Kargil had dramatically
escalated tensions. Given the
relatively short life of recent governments, the country was beginning to crave
stability.
Elections in the world’s
largest democracy are grand, expensive events that move at a leisurely pace-
for example, voting took place over a one-month period. Mobilizing an electorate of over billion
people is no easy task. My first-hand
observation of this event from close quarters led me to a few observations,
which are summarized below. I am sure
you have seen some of this reported and discussed in the western media. However, I hope you find my view from close
quarters interesting.
Sonia
Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of Rajiv Gandhi, is now the leader of the
Congress party. She had not
participated in politics previously.
However, the party decided that her “brand name” and links to the Nehru
dynasty would automatically mean that she would attract a large number of
votes. It turned out that she was a bad
public speaker and a poor campaigner.
She frequently read from index cards in public and showed her
nervousness by running from two constituencies. She identified the state of one of her constituencies incorrectly
on a TV interview leading to even more criticism.
To
add to this, the Hindu nationalists launched a campaign attacking her foreign
origin. This campaign questioned her
understanding of and interest in Indian issues as a foreigner. It asked why she had waited for a long time
to obtain her Indian citizenship alluding at her opportunism. A particularly outspoken member compared her
to Monica Lewinsky. I am yet to figure
out why.
The
campaign worked. Even though Sonia won
her two constituencies, she was not able to galvanize the nation into voting
for her party. However, this is not an
indicator of the decline of “the dynasty” in Indian politics. Some politicians are already considering
Priyanka, the daughter of Rajiv and Sonia, as a future leader.
The Election Commission in
India has adopted an activist stance in recent years. This trend has continued this year.
In this election, one of
their decisions was to ban reporting the results of opinion polls when the
election was in progress. Their
rationale was that releasing the results of opinion polls would influence the
electorate and could bias them. They
questioned the basis for conducting some of these polls and questioned the
legitimacy of the statistical process behind it. However, the Supreme Court who deemed that this was outside the
commission’s jurisdiction upheld a legal challenge to this ruling.
Overall, it was strange to
go through an election reading or hearing about the process without knowing who
was in the lead.
More interestingly, the
commission placed a ban on the parties advertising in electronic media, i.e.,
radio and TV. The rationale here was
that since it is expensive to purchase ad space on these media, only big parties
could afford it. While this may be
true, it did limit the discourse on major issues. The Internet was not a big factor in the election given the poor
access rates among households.
Finally, the country went
high-tech by choosing to introduce electronic voting machines in some
districts. By all accounts this was
successful- even though they intimidated some of the voters and power failures
limited their efficacy in some areas.
The papers regularly
reported violence in connection with the polls. Some candidates were murdered.
There were reports of entire low-caste communities being prevented from
voting using violent means. Allegations
of manipulating the election process through booth capturing and offering
illegal incentives to voters (e.g. cheap liquor) abounded.
In conclusion, an election
in India is a fascinating event. Even
though it is immense in scale and complexity and fraught with problems, it is
great to see the largest democracy at work.