Question

Ask the elders in your family and neighbourhood about their experience of participating in elections.

• Did anyone vote in the first or second general election? Who did they vote for and why?
• Is there someone who has used all the three methods of voting? Which one did they prefer?
• In which ways do they find the elections of those days different from the present ones?

Answer 1

1. Participation in the Early General Elections (1952/1957)

• The Experience: My great-grandmother (aged 95) recalls the festive, sacred atmosphere of the second general election in 1957. For her village, election day was treated like a major community festival. People took ritual baths, wore their finest clothes, and walked miles together in long processions to reach the polling booth.
• Who They Voted For & Why: She shared that her family voted overwhelmingly for the Indian National Congress. The reason was simple and powerful: the memory of the freedom struggle was incredibly fresh. To ordinary citizens of that generation, the Congress party was synonymous with Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who had successfully delivered Azaadi (freedom) from British rule. Voting for them felt like a patriotic duty to protect the newborn nation.

2. Experience Across All Three Methods of Voting

My grandfather (aged 81) has voted in almost every election since the 1960s and is among the rare generation of citizens who have personally used all three distinct historical methods of voting:

• The Preferred Choice: He strongly prefers the modern EVM with VVPAT system. He explained that while the old paper stamp era had a certain emotional charm, it was incredibly slow, prone to counting errors, and vulnerable to “booth-capturing” (where thugs physically stole ballot boxes). EVMs make voting incredibly fast, eliminate invalid votes caused by smeared ink stamps, and provide instant reassurance through the VVPAT paper window display.

3. Then vs. Now: How Elections Have Changed

When asked to compare past elections with present-day ones, the elders highlighted several striking differences:

1. Campaign Style and Tone:
   • Then: Campaigns in the decades following independence felt more personal and idealistic. Candidates and volunteers relied heavily on door-to-door walking, hand-painted wall posters, cycle rallies, and small community corner meetings (nukkad sabhas). Issues were often deeply tied to local development and nation-building.
   • Now: Modern campaigns are high-tech, fast-paced, and dominated by mass media, television advertisements, digital outreach, and large-scale rallies.
2. Voter Awareness and Security:
   • Then: Polling booths could occasionally be tense, and logistical hurdles were immense, particularly with ensuring women could vote independently (many early electoral rolls listed women simply as “wife of [Name]” or “mother of [Name]”).
   • Now: Strict guidelines by the Election Commission, centralized security forces, mandatory photo voter slips, and widespread media awareness have made voting far more organized, secure, and inclusive, leading to record-high voter turnouts in recent years.