Electoral literacy for stronger democracy

Democracy is the kind of government in which the adult citizens of a  country have the constitutional right or are rather endowed with the  responsibility to choose their representatives who in turn form the government. The term 'Democracy' is, therefore, also described as 'a government of the people, by the people, for the people'. However, to establish a truely strong democracy, we need to ensure the maximum participation of the voters in the electoral process and a conduct of an informed and ethical voting.

      Despite the fact that India is the largest of the democracies of the world, the percentage of voting or the voter turnout had been fluctuating between 45.7% in 1952(first Lok Sabha election) to 57.6% in 2009. It was certainly an issue of concern for the Election Commission of India. The challenges that ECI had been facing in organising fair and ethical polls with maximum voter turnout were illiteracy, lack of electoral awareness among the voters, bribing the voters with money, liquor and other short term benefits by the candidates, booth capturing using weapons or muscle power and voter intimidation by various candidates in fray.

    To overcome all these challenges and with the vision of enhancing the electoral participation of the voters, ECI launched the programme SVEEP (Systematic Voters' Education & Electoral participation) in 2010 aimed at hiking the voter turnout through a series of electoral awareness campaigns which were organised in different phases. As a consequence of the first and second phase of SVEEP, there was an unexpected and unprecedented surge in the voter turnout in the 2014 loksabha elections reaching upto 66.7%. As a part of SVEEP, ECI later launched the ELCs (Electoral Literacy Clubs) in 2018 which targeted the new voters in the age group of 18 to 21yrs (in colleges or universities) and the future voters in the age group of 14 to 17 yrs ( in secondary and senior secondary schools). These clubs operate through a series of hands–on experiential and interesting activities to make the future voters understand the value of their single vote, to make them aware of the robustness and reliability of the EVM and VVPAT, the process of voter registration and motivate them to spread the same message in the community.

       To retain the pedagogical essence of the ELC's activities, these are provided with a convener who operates under dirtrict nodal officer called DLMT(District Level Master Trainer) who in turn operates under state level master trainers(SLMTs).

     For reaching out to the population beyond the formal education, ELCs set up 'Chunav Pathshala' at the polling booths before every election to fecilitate and motivate the enthusiastic participation of the voters from villages or remote areas. They are rather motivated to celebrate  polling as a festival of democracy.

     Just before the previous Lok Sabha elections 2019, the Supreme Court passed an order in 2018 stating the candidates in fray to declare their assets and also their antecedent criminal records, if any, in the newspapers or electronic media in bold letters, before filing their nominations for candidature in elections. Voters are supposed to be fully aware of their candidate's assets, character, past criminal records, if any, and the genuineness of their manifesto or promises that they make to the voters prior to the elections.

     Another welcome move by the Supreme Court of India before the last Lok Sabha Elections was to direct the ECI to add a NOTA (none of the above) option in the EVMs for the voters who were not satisfied by any of the candidates.They were given the right to reject all the candidates.Though NOTA has no electoral value but it has definitely done wonders in turning up maximum voters to express their opinion regarding their dissatisfaction .
      Then, to motivate the voters, some booths were chosen as ideal booths, well decorated and some freebies were offered to the voters.
       As a consequence of all these steady efforts made by the ECI, India witnessed a record voter turnout during the Lok Sabha election 2019 reaching more than 67%.

    Now we can definitely say that India is moving ahead towards a stronger democracy and, of course, electoral literacy has a major role to play in furthering the enhancement of voter turnout. 

Sushma Rai
Assistant Teacher,UPS Pagara 
Block-Deoria Sadar, District-Deoria