October 15, 2010 8:16:55 PM
Arindam Chaudhuri
It is time the Government allowed voting through mobile phone and Internet to ensure a high voter ‘turnout’. Further, voters should be given the choice to vote for ‘None of the above'. That will redefine democracy and give us a Government by the people
Last December, the State Assembly of Gujarat passed a Bill to make voting mandatory — that Bill is still to see a nod from the Governor. Revisiting the issue, Mr LK Advani and Mr Narendra Modi both recently echoed the viewpoint again and asked the legislation to make voting compulsory in the State, especially after a low turnout rate in the recent civic elections. On an average, the voter turnout rate in Gujarat has been around 50 per cent, while a month back Bihar saw a turnout rate of 43-45 per cent. The recent developments with respect to compulsory voting remind me of an article that I wrote way back in 2007 — on allowing voting through SMS. Although I am not in favour of mandatory voting in a democracy as that is not logical, what is essential is a larger engagement of the electorate, which has been diminishing by the day. In fact, this larger engagement need not be just for a few constituencies, but it should be applicable for the whole nation.
Obviously, there is practically no better way to rationalise the electoral process than by making the electorate wider with a singular objective of universal suffrage. With the current voter turnout rates hardly touching the 50 per cent mark these days, the election results, in essence, fail to reflect the actual mandate, as a major proportion of the electorate chooses not to exercise their franchise. And the most unfortunate part is that a majority of people who abstain from voting are the youth and the educated class. They feel completely disengaged from the election process because of the process itself — which till recently was fraught with rigging and other forms of malpractices — the quality of candidates, and the political system as a whole.
But then, what most do not realise is that their decision not to vote not only leads to the selection of an incapable person (who is a criminal 25 per cent of the time), but for that matter, also questions the duties attached to our fundamental rights. This also reminds me of those horror years when India saw the repercussions of low voter turnout rate — where the Government lasted for few days to few weeks (twice in 1996 and then in 1998), costing the national exchequer a massive amount. The situation has been so bad that the last 13 general elections have seen an average turnout rate of 59.63 per cent (least being 33 per cent and maximum being 61.97 per cent).
The issue of a larger engagement becomes more pertinent as conducting of elections are a huge expense to the nation. As per the official reports, India invested a staggering sum of `100 billion — or `10,000 crore — in the last general election. A trend analysis on the expenditure over the last 30 years indicates that every year the expenditures on Lok Sabha election increase by nothing less than 40-45 per cent. Over and above the official expenditure, the political parties also indulge in huge expenditures in their respective campaigns to lure voters. In 2004, in the much hyped ‘India Shining’ campaign, the BJP had frittered over `75-100 crore, while the last election saw Congress and BJP spending more than `250 crore each.
Moreover, the idea of a larger engagement in voting is not discreet but is well present across the world. Countries like Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Fiji, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Nauru, Peru, Singapore, Turkey, Uruguay et al, witness an average of 90-95 per cent voting, thus bringing to power those Governments that are truly people’s representatives — all thanks to the systems they practice.
As I wrote back in 2007, apart from making voting broad-based, it is important to make it accessible — more mobile-polling booths and voting through mobiles and Internet could ensure a high voter turnout. And further, along with this, there should be the final choice that many in India have been fighting for: The choice to vote for ‘None of the Above’. Democracy might take a new form then. We might have a result that looks like — ‘Congress’ 24 per cent, ‘BJP’ 24 per cent, ‘Others’ one per cent and ‘None of the Above’ 51 per cent.
The seats in every Parliament should also be distributed in the ratio of votes polled as it should be in a true democracy. While democracy then will replace the existing demon-ocracy in India, politicians will also know that the only way to stay in power is by working for the benefit of the people. And they will start doing that, instead of indulging in criminal activities. And whenever there is a new scam, mobile companies can make some more money by having a snap opinion poll asking voters to comment on whether they still want the Government in power. Such opinion polls cannot go wrong, nor can they be debated. We might finally end up getting Governments truly for the people, by the people and of the people.
-- The writer is a management guru and Editor, The Sunday Indian.
The Pioneer
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