WITHIN a week after the Supreme Court’s caution against casting doubts about the credibility of India’s electoral system with regard to EVM issues, the Congress and its allies have sought to put the Election Commission on the dock on the issue of turnout data. As the Chief Election Commissioner has rightly pointed out in a timely and prompt response to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharage, the trend of irresponsible statements attacking or attempting to degrade the credibility of the elections in terms of men and material is disconcerting. This is part of a pattern in creating a false narrative.
The timing of the spat is strange. The Opposition campaign of calumny against the EC comes at a time when the latter has won international acclaim for free and fair conduct of the world’s largest electoral exercise. The Indian electoral system and the work done by the Election Commission of India hold a significant portion of the world democratic space. In terms of process and capacity it generates – what can be legitimately called, ‘democratic surpluses’ – is of huge significance in the otherwise growing concerns of shrinkage of democratic spaces worldwide. Free, fair and regular multi-party elections, progressive reforms, such as the EVMs, and a fiercely independent Election Commission have added to the strong credentials of the Indian democracy. Testifying the fact, 75 delegates representing 23 countries are in India to witness the ongoing elections as part of the International Election Visitors’ Programme (IEVP).
The rub is that while the world looks up to India, there are elements that want to run down its democratic credentials. In the last ten years where people have elected (2014) and re-elected (2019) the Modi Government to power, the losing sides, backed by anti-India rhetoric both within and outside of the country, have cried foul unwarrantedly. They have gone to the extent of projecting this decisive mandate of the people as “death of democracy” and “rise of dictatorship”. Such narratives are peddled and provided questionable legitimacy via motivated international reports and dubious rating agencies. Such attempts at undermining India’s democratic credibility are arbitrary, unsubstantiated, and lack credibility. None of them takes into account the fact that in Modi’s India, the people are janata janardan; they reign supreme as decision-makers. As PM Modi has pointed out, “India is the world’s oldest democracy; it is the mother of democracy.”
The truth is that during the past ten years, PM Modi has given a long overdue historic shift to the narrative of Indian democracy. Unlike the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy that India adopted from the West, PM Modi imbued it with the country’s ancient civilisational ethos. Amid the cacophony of political rhetoric, his ‘Idea of India’ transcends political lines. It encapsulates the essence of the nation’s rich cultural heritage, diversity, and inclusive values and offers a blueprint for a united and prosperous India. Indian democracy receives its credibility from its people. Based on PM Modi’s governance through jan bhagidaari, jan hissedaari and jan zimmedaari, and his model of inclusive development, people believe that he alone can lead them towards Viksit Bharat. For the so-called champions of Western democracy, elections only epitomise a procedural formality. For PM Modi, they represent the substance of democracy and an acknowledgment of people’s sovereignty
