[Reader-list] Article about Myths of Indian Elections

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear all

This article comes from someone who has been done extensive research and
surveys in the field of election verdicts, and based on his surveys and
experiences has come up with this article. I hope you would like to read
this, for it has important elements of discussion not only taking place
generally on Sarai, but also about other aspects which I think we should
also discuss.

Regards

Rakesh

*Article:*

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7973477.stm


*Six myths about Indian elections
*
Do women in India vote according to the wishes of their husbands? Do Muslims
vote as a community? Political scientist Yogendra Yadav examines six myths
surrounding the Indian elections.

A myth is a story or trend that a culture believes to be true. But it has
also taken on the meaning of a popular conception that may have become
exaggerated if not downright false.

The reason why there is so much myth making around politics and elections in
India is partly because Indians are passionate about politics.

It is also because there is very little hard evidence on political
behaviour. When it comes to politics, anything goes.

Here are the six most popular myths about Indian politics and elections:

*WOMEN VOTE ACCORDING TO THE WISHES OF THEIR HUSBANDS*

It is true that in India, like many democracies, the levels of interest and
involvement of women in politics is lower than that of men.

Obviously, if you are less interested in something, you tend you go by
somebody else's advice - in the case of women in India it may be the advice
of men in their family.

But we cannot conclude that all - or almost all - women go by whatever their
husbands ask them to do and so therefore are not really an independent
factor in politics.

For one, the level of involvement of women in politics has risen sharply in
the past two decades or so: the turnout of women during polling used to be a
good 10 percentage points below the turnout of men; and now, the gap is
barely two to three.

Today, more women turn out to vote than men in many states.

Second, if it were true that all women were to follow their men in their
voting preference, we would not find any difference in the level of support
for different parties among men and women.

But surveys over the past 40 years have consistently shown a difference in
levels of support for major political parties among men and women.

Congress, for example, has always got more votes from women than from men
since the days of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi or even earlier.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Bengal, the regional Rashtriya
Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar, and the AIADMK party in Tamil Nadu led by former
actress Jayalalitha, are some of the parties who get more votes from women
than from men.

Since the early 1970s, researchers from Delhi's Centre for Developing
Societies have asked women voters whose advise they seek while casting their
ballots.

The evidence shows that fewer than 50% of women today go by the advice of
their husband or any men in their family.

*MUSLIMS VOTE HEAVILY AND AS A BLOC*

We simply have no good evidence to prove that Muslims vote more than the
majority Hindus.

This perception comes from seeing long queues at polling stations in some
Muslim majority urban areas where community voters, especially the poor and
women, tend to be very visible.

Research shows that in most elections after 1996, the turnout of Muslim
voters has actually been a little lower than that of Hindus.

The other perception about Muslims voting en bloc has an element of truth.

Any minority community tends to flock together, consult among themselves,
and has a great sense of community. This applies to Muslims as much as it
applies to Sikhs in Delhi, Hindu pundits in Indian-administered Kashmir and
to Bengalis in north-eastern India.

But it is simply not true that there is anything like a Muslim bloc at
national level.

If there is one striking thing about Indian Muslims, it is the fact that
unlike most minorities in most democracies around the world, Indian Muslims
have not voted for Muslim parties.

They have had their preferred political parties - Congress used to be one of
those parties, and now there are many.

Also, Muslims in India do not vote en bloc like, say, the black vote in the
US for the Democratic Party or the UK's ethnic minorities who largely vote
for the Labour Party.

Politically speaking, there is no single unified Muslim community in India.

Muslims are fragmented along the lines of religion, sect, caste and
community.

In the past two decades, Muslim voters have chosen different parties in
different states: the CPI(M) in Bengal, the RJD in Bihar, the regional
Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, the DMK party in Tamil Nadu and the
Congress in other parts of the country.

In other words, it is an exaggeration to say there is one unified Muslim
vote in the country.

*THE YOUNG VOTE DISTINCTLY AND INDEPENDENTLY
*
There is a perception that youth constitute a distinct political bloc with
unique and independent political preferences and views.

Two-thirds of Indians are below the age of 35.

That itself is no basis for concluding that the young are distinct and
different from the rest of the population in terms of their political
opinions, attitudes and behaviour.

I guess we tend to talk about "youth voters" because we import our
vocabulary of political analysis from Europe where the generational divide
is a significant political cleavage of that society. Where a party like the
Greens primarily rides on the divide of the young versus the old.

This myth also feeds on a perception that youth are supposed to be carriers
of change and transformation.

The evidence in India, however, does not confirm any of these beliefs.

There is no evidence to suggest that the young are politically more active
than others. If anything, they are less politically active - obviously they
have other anxieties in life, like preparing for a professional career.

Indians allow their image of the young to be dominated by the image of the
city-bred English-speaking youth, which is very different from the rest of
the country.

But we forget that this is a tiny slice of Indian youth.

There is no systematic difference between the manner in which the young and
the not-so-young vote.

It is true that in many states political parties that are relatively more
recent or young tend to get more votes from young people.

But that is only a function of political socialisation: simply because the
young were more exposed to that party than people of an older generation who
had not even heard its name.

Even in terms of opinions, we have simply not found anything like a
generational cleavage in Indian politics.

The young support democracy in much the same way as the old do.

The young are about as traditional and conservative as the old. Even on
questions like inter-caste marriage, the opinions of the young are not
actually very different from the rest of the population.

*HIGH TURNOUT LEADS TO DEFEAT FOR THE RULING PARTY*

It is simply a coincidence that the era which has witnessed higher voter
turnout at the federal and state level is also the era which has witnessed a
higher level of volatility - a tendency for voters to switch from one party
to another, leading to ruling governments or incumbent representatives
losing the election.

But there is little evidence to suggest that there is a linkage between the
two.

It is simply not true that elections that witness high turnout lead to a
loss for the ruling party.

Take the latest case of Madhya Pradesh. In the state elections last year
there was a record turnout.

Some analysts saw it as evidence of the ruling BJP being thrown out. The BJP
won the polls again.

High voter turnout can be a function of many different things - a
spontaneous outpouring of the voters, of intensity of political competition,
of greater mobilisation and resources put in by political parties or of
greater interest on the part of the voter.

So depending on what led to the higher turnout, you would have different
consequences of it.

*THERE IS WIDESPREAD APATHY TOWARDS POLITICS*

This is one myth that comes close to being totally false.

The fact is that while in many other democracies in the world, voter
turnouts have declined, in India turnouts have either remained stable or
have gone up.

If we look at political associations, Indians have an amazingly intense
attachment to politics.

The proportion of people attached to one party, who feel close to a party,
is much higher in India than in many other democracies.

The proportion of people who are members of a political party is much higher
in India than in the US and most European democracies.

The proportion of voters who report that they took some part in electoral
activity - going to meetings or campaigning - is quite robust.

And the number of people who report that someone came to their house to
canvass for votes is very high.

In advanced democracies, as you come down the various tiers - from national
to local elections - the turnout of voters goes down.

In India, it is exactly the opposite: the turnout in federal elections tends
to be around 60%, in the state elections it is around 70% and when it comes
to village council elections it is anything upwards of 80%.

Most important, our democracy defies what was once considered a law of
political participation in the world: the higher up you are in the
socio-economic hierarchy, the more you participate in politics and voting.

In India, evidence shows that the poor "untouchables" vote more than upper
castes. The poor vote as much, if not more, than the urban middle classes.
Rural areas vote more than urban areas. Women vote almost as much as men do.

In other words there is no connection between social hierarchy and
participation in politics.

Rather than voter apathy and indifference, there has been a participatory
upsurge for democracy in India.

*INDIANS DON'T CAST THEIR VOTE, THEY VOTE THEIR CASTE*

It is true that caste is one of the major determinants of voting behaviour
in India. In certain situations when voters are extremely polarised, it
appears to be to the sole consideration.

But the fact is that caste is not quite the sole consideration.

It is certainly untrue that defeat and victory for political parties in
elections can be explained by a few caste or community groups switching
sides from one party to another.

The reason many feel that caste is powerful is because we use the phrase
"caste based vote bank" to mean many things.

In Delhi's politics, the expression "Punjabi" (literally, residents of
Punjab or people who speak the Punjabi language) is used as if it is a
caste. Actually, it is a linguistic group.

People use the word "Bihari" (literally, residents of Bihar) as if it is a
caste group. Actually, it is a regional affiliation, or a moniker for poor
migrants.

A caste vote can also be a vote against a candidate of a voter's own caste
in favour of a party considered closer to their caste.

So if a person belonging to the Yadav caste in Bihar votes for a Congress
party candidate because the candidate is a Yadav himself, it is an example
of caste voting.

If the same person were to vote for a candidate belonging to the Bhumihar
caste put up by the regional Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) - which largely
represents the Yadav caste - it would be also an example of caste voting.

The evidence on caste voting suggests that caste tends to be a major
determinant, specially among the large, visible and powerful caste groups.

The caste-vote trend is towards voting for a party that is considered to be
close to their caste or community group.

But the fact remains that most voters in most constituencies in India do not
have a simple option of voting along caste lines.

Either they have more than one candidate from their own caste or they have
none.

They simply cannot vote according to their caste. There has to be a
consideration other than caste for almost three-quarters of the voters.

Caste provides us with good information on the initial affiliations of
social groups. But across two elections, the increasing votes for one party
or defeat of another is not explained by castes changing sides.

When a party goes up in popularity or declines in popularity, it usually
wins and loses votes across castes.

*Yogendra Yadav designed and co-ordinated the largest ever series of
academic surveys of the Indian electorate for the Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies.*