The Power of the Ballot

Elections in the country have been a stable and impressive feature of the Indian political landscape. India’s tryst with democracy via elections needs to be told time and again. Over the post-independence decades, elections have turned into a panorama of the democratic experience that makes interesting reading. Democracy has faced various challenges in the last seven decades in India – inter alia, from radicalism, ultra-Left wing activism, external threats, and the vicissitudes of the polity or economy. But 2020 brought in an unprecedented challenge in the form of an unseen, unknown and silent enemy that had to be fought in the process of upholding the democratic process of elections, the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the cascading effects of the pandemic had been its impact on democracies. The caveat that required, any Covid-19 election not to compromise the integrity or legitimacy of an election, was a key consideration for whether an election should proceed or be postponed. There are other issues, cropping up from time to time such as digitalisation of voting, one nation- one election and constant struggle with the malpractices, in the arena of elections from time to time.