Secrets behind India’s famed peaceful multiparty democracy

For starters, India is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country as of June 2023; and from the time of its independence from Britain in 1947, the world's most populous democracy.

Numbers are as follows: India has a total area of 3,287,263 square kilometres (1,269,219 square miles) inhabited by 1.4 billion people out of which 950,000,000 are registered voters.

Election Commission of India is one of institutions visited by a delegation of 30 senior journalists from 16 African countries invited by the country’s government through its Ministry of External Affairs last month for a week-long familiarization tour.

This is a very important and powerful institution in India. It solely decides the election schedules, location of polling booths, assigns voters to polling stations and makes all arrangements related to elections.

Also, all political parties must be registered with the Commission under the law it ensures that democracy is maintained within parties. It issues a ‘Model Code of Conduct’ for political parties and consults them on the compliance of the code.

Tough terrains

Rajiv Kumar(pictured), Chief Election Commissioner, told the delegation that to reach voters in the 1.2 million polling centres scattered across the country is not a walk in the park but a noble job that must be done diligently.

“The country is vast with easily accessible areas as well as challenging terrains such as mountains and meandering hills, rivers, a long coastline as well as a desert,” he said.

“Yet, our motto here is ‘No voter to be left behind’ which means materials are delivered to every polling station on time.”

Also, India is a melting port of diverse sociocultural, ethnic and linguistic communities living in the 28 states and 8 union territories where the over 2,000 political parties operate, including regional parties.

To do this, Kumar said the Commission recruits 20 million people as election staff to ensure that the country maintains its status not only as the largest democracy in the world but a peaceful multiparty democracy for that matter.

The peace aspect is important at a time when even some of the most established democracies in the deepened countries are contested and others turn violent.

Independent body

Asked about possible political interference as reported to be the case in many developing countries, Kumar said that is not the case with the Commission because of two main reasons: first, it is experienced and second, it is truly independent body.

He said the Commission was established on January 25, 1950—three years after independence—to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, direction, and control of elections to parliament, state legislatures, the office of the president of India, and the office of vice-president shall be vested in the Election Commission.

The Commission is an all-India body in the sense that it is common to both the central government and the state governments. Kumar added that there are other two reasons why the work of the Commission cannot be interfered with, thanks to the constitution.

“Commissioners cannot be removed upon appointment and our budget is independent,” he said.

Technology

Because of its large population, India started developing and testing Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) since 1990s. This process was undertaken by the state-owned Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics.

 EVMs were introduced in elections between 1998 and 2001 in a phased manner but electronic voting is now the standard means of conducting elections in the country.

“To avoid technical glitches and delays due to logistical challenges, our EVMs are installed in all centes and tested six months before the election day,” he said.

“As a result, we deliver an election in one day; the results are normally known in the evening of the voting day.”

But to ensure transparency, all candidates are allowed to appoint agents who oversee the whole process from installation of the machines, testing the voting itself, tallying and announcement of results.

Before the introduction of electronic voting, India used paper ballots and manual counting method which was widely criticised because of not only delays but reports of electoral fraud by some politicians and party loyalists.