BEGINNING OF THE GREAT INDIAN POLITICAL DRAMA

Sukumar Sen

India got independent on 15^th august 1947. Indian leaders wanted to celebrate 26^th January as the independence day as it was the day of ‘Poorna Swaraj’ but the former date was chosen by the British viceroy, Lord Mountbatten as it was the second anniversary of the Japanese surrender to the allied forces in the second World war. Freedom to India came on a day that resonated with imperial pride rather than nationalist settlement. Once the British left their office, India went through the tragic consequences of partition. With partition lying was an another big issue of ‘Reorganisation of the Princely states’. At that time, in countries like India, poor and illiterate it was too hard to establish democracy. Many political pandits termed it as the threat to the unity of the country. Till now democracy was only practiced In the European nations and countries of North America where economy and literacy rate was far better than that of India. Nobody expected from India to perform well. During the formation of the constitution one thing on which all the leaders agreed was that, India will have a democratic form of government elected on the basis of UAF (Universal Adult Franchise). This was agreed on the combined interest of unity and diversity. Now it was the time to bring the policy into implementation. In January 1950, Election Commission of India was set up which was completely independent in nature. In March, Sukumar Sen, one of the most underrated players of the contemporary Indian history, was appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner of India. He was an Indian bureaucrat who completed his study from presidency college and was a gold medalist in mathematics from the London university. In April, the same year, ‘People Representation Act’ was passed where interim Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru announced that India will have its first General Elections around the spring of 1951. Nehru was in a hurry to conduct the elections but it was Sen who asked him to slow down as there were many challenges pending to accomplish ahead.

According to the UAF, at that time men and women above the age of 21 had the right to cast their vote. When the data and statistics came out it was found that there were total of 176 Million eligible voters in India of which 85% were illiterate and didn’t know how to read and write. With this lied another big challenge of drawing constitutional boundaries, as it was decided that the Parliamentary and Assembly elections both will take place at the same time. Therefore It now became more complicated to reorganize the constituencies and prepare the Electoral Roll. As soon as the first draft came out it was announced that elections will take place for 49 seats in Lok Sabha and 3280 in State Assemblies. In the western countries only Men had a right to vote and women were still deprived of voting rights even in the presence of the democratic setup. India was the first democratic country to provide its women with the right to elect their representatives. But with this draft came even a bigger problem. The actual name of 4 million women was absent as it was diffidence of women in north India to give their own names. The names were just recorded as the wife of, daughter of, mother of etc. This was completely unacceptable to the CEC. The old draft was disposed and a new restructured list was made from which the names of around 2.8 million women voters were struck out. It was quite unfortunate and disappointing but Sen saw it as a positive move, for it will help the prejudice vanish before the next elections, by which time the women can be reinstated under their own names. The Commission countered many geographical problems as well. Many remote hill villages were not connected to each other. In order to gain maximum participation of voters bridges were constructed joining one point to another. In various island villages boat services were also started. The elections were already postponed twice and the critics were all set to shoot their new target. An Indian editor mentioned it as the ‘Biggest gamble in history’. Not only the Indian but the foreign critics were on the board too. Many had already started to write about the upcoming failures of this mega event. Meanwhile in India, preparations were going on a full swing and  the EC had no time to waste.

For the successful commencement of elections around 224000+ polling booths were placed. Votes were to be casted through ballot system therefore around 2 million Godrej ballot boxes were produced which were made from approximately 8200 tonnes of steel. As the number of illiterate voters was quite high, to avoid failure of symbol identification amongst the voters separate boxes for each candidate were placed at the polling booth. To avoid impersonation scientifically developed ink was used which constituted approximately around 389816 phials. Each party was allotted with a pictorial symbol  as their party symbols by the EC which were completely based on the things humans encounter in their daily life E.g. table, axe, bullock etc. Meanwhile at the same time elections in UK were also taking place where Winston Churchill was trying everything possible to bring conservatives back to the power. In India, Sukumar Sen was not a lone warrior in this battle. With him were standing Election Commissioners of various other states and the ICS men. 16500 clerks were called upon a 6 months contract to prepare the electoral roll touring the whole India. There were 56000 presiding officers which  were appointed to supervise the 28000 helpers. To maintain the law and order 224000 policemen were deployed over the whole country. To spread awareness among the voters; newspapers, media and radio were extensively used by the Election Commission. Various awareness films were played in around 3000 cinemas whereas many programmes were played on All India Radio which was principle source of news for the majority of Indians.

Elections were held from October 1951 to February 1952. It took around 6 months for the completion of the whole process of campaigning, polling and counting. Despite of high rate of illiteracy 60% of the eligible voters exercised their right which in itself was a great success. Highest turnout was 80.5% which was recorded at the parliamentary constituency of Kottayam located in present day Kerala. A 110 years old man showcased an extraordinary spirit with his presence at a booth in Madurai. Many people living in forest walked long distances to exercise their right because they knew this is the only day when they show their relevance to the country. As per a report by a foreign journalist, various tribal people in remote land came to cast their vote with a bow and arrow in their hand. Main centres of voting were the Delhi, the land of leaders and Mumbai, the Financial capital. In Mumbai 70% of people casted their vote of which majority were the industrial workers whereas the fashionable middle class showed less interest in voting. Despite cold there were  long ques outside the polling booths before the start of the start of the polling.

Polling ended in the last week of February. During the electoral process , riots at various places broke out. Around 1250 Election related offence were recorded of which 817 were of impersonation of votes, 106 of mishandling of ballot papers and 100 of canvassing within 100 yards of polling station.  Once the electoral process was over it was declared as the landmark victory of Election Commission of India. All the critics of democracy and India were proven wrong. Poverty and illiteracy were seen  as the biggest obstacles during the whole process but eventually it was the awareness of the voters which had the final call. Sukumar Sen mentioned it as ‘”The biggest experiment in democracy in human history”.

Seven decades after this historical event, the names of Sukumar Sen and his colleagues are somewhere lost in the deep galleries of archives. If we are still a democracy, than much of its credit goes to the success of First General Elections. It didn’t only gave us the first democratically elected government but also lighted the path for future of democracy in India.

The unsung heroes of Indian Democracy.

I would like to dedicate this article to the first CEC of India Mr. Sukumar Sen and his entire team for their services in the first General Elections of 1952.