SANSAD TV: MILESTONES SERIES- UNIVERSAL ADULT FRANCHISE – INSIGHTSIAS

Introduction:

The Indian Constitution has adopted universal adult franchise as a basis of elections to the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies. The article 326 defines a universal adult franchise as the basis for elections to all levels of the elected government. The universal Adult Franchise refers that all citizens who are 18 years and above irrespective of their caste or education, religion, colour, race and economic conditions are free to vote.

• Democracy took a giant step forward with the first general election held in 1951-52 over a four-month period. These elections were the biggest experiment in democracy anywhere in the world.
• The elections were held based on universal adult franchise, with all those twenty-one years of age or older having the right to vote. There were over 173 million voters, most of them poor, illiterate, and rural, and having had no experience of elections.
• The big question at the time was how the people would respond to this opportunity. Many were skeptical about such an electorate being able to exercise its right to vote in a politically mature and responsible manner.
• Universal suffrage, also known as general suffrage or common suffrage, consists of the right to vote of all adult citizens, regardless of property ownership, income, race, or ethnicity, subject only to minor exception.
• Universal Adult Suffrage has been cornerstone of election process in India since its inception.
• BR Ambedkar, as the chairman of the Constitution’s drafting committee, played a crucial role in ensuring that India got universal adult franchise after Independence.
• Despite this Election Commission of India has achieved the major feat of conducting elections for all adult population.

Principles that formed the backbone of universal adult franchise in becoming part of the Constitution:

• Adult suffrage had been one of the rallying cries of the freedom movement for around three decades preceding the drafting of the Constitution. It was enshrined, for example, in the 1931 Karachi Resolution, a proto-constitutional document drafted by the Congress
• British made the use of limited franchise specifically to minimize their responsibilities to which nationalist leaders objected strongly.
• Indian nationalist leaders truly believed in the concept that all human are born equal and they have certain rights just on account of being human irrespective of their nationalities.
• Indian constitution makers were aware that limited adult suffrage would exclude the under-privileged and marginalized sections of the society to whom it is most needed. UAS makes government accountable and responsible to all citizens and compels them to work for all.
• Ambedkar’s argument that voting was essential to citizenship and that voting served as a means of political education for the historically deprived sections was key to India’s voting rights
• Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer of the constituent assembly said in November 1949, “the Assembly has adopted the principle of adult franchise with an abundant faith in the common man and the ultimate success of democratic rule and in the full belief that the introduction of democratic government on the basis of adult suffrage will bring enlightenment and promote the well-being, the standard of life, the comfort and the decent living of the common man. The principle of adult suffrage was adopted in no lighthearted mood but with the full realisation of its implications.”

Challenges in Universal adult suffrage: 

• The processes of incremental suffrage expansion in country had a major impact on the development of their political systems in India at that time.
• As new priorities arose, public institutions and capacities had to be created or overhauled to suit them. There was the huge stress on the public institutions to complete the mammoth task of general election without any kind of previous experience.
• In 1947, moreover, barely 18 percent of Indian voters were literate. People could vote, but grasping how government worked and laying out coherent demands were large early challenges.
• With so much emphasis going to national projects and the task of consolidating power at the center, governance capacities in the states suffered.
• Especially hard-hit were effortsto provide public goods related to education and health, for the 1950 Constitution had made the states, not the central government, primarily responsible in these areas.

Universal adult suffrage has democratized today’s governance system:

• Attributes of Citizenship: the right of representation and the right to hold office under the State are the two most important rights that make up citizenship
• Voter’s participation: the voter’s participation is imperative as they become a part of the governance and the policies of the government will directly or indirectly impact them.
• Political and Social emancipation: voting could serve as a means of political education for those who had been denied any part of political and social life for all these years, and as a tool to “remove the evil conditions” that exists. The acknowledgment of electoral equality among all adult Indians, irrespective of class, caste, or community, was an entirely new experience for a society beset by historically entrenched inequalities.
• Women empowerment: the women’s participation both in voters and as political leaders is present as UAS is universal. In fact women leaders form the one third proportion of total at the Panchayat level.
• Rights to minorities and backward: UAS has preserved, protected and nurtured the political, cultural and socioeconomic rights of the minorities and backward communities of India.
• Quest for good governance: UAS plays instrumental role in rising the standard of governance and making political leaders more accountable to the people.
• The process of nation-building began in a newly serious way. The ideals of the freedom movement had unfolded with a new fullness, setting a capstone atop the movement’s momentous achievement.

Conclusion:

The system of adult franchise is the bedrock of a democratic system. People are called political sovereign because they possess the right to vote a government into power, or to vote a government out of power. It contributed to forging a sense of national unity and national feeling, turned the notion of people’s belonging to something tangible. They became the focus of the new state’s leap of faith, in which they now had a stake.