Wooing India's educated but apathetic middle-class voters

Apr 29, 2009, 8:38 GMT

   New Delhi - Rajesh Kumar, 35, has cast his ballot in every election in India since he turned 18.

   Each election day, Kumar, a primary school drop-out who works as a gardener in a Delhi suburb, takes two days of leave to go to his home village in adjacent Uttar Pradesh state to cast his ballot.

   But most of the owners of the homes where Kumar works - men and women who are part of India's increasingly wealthy urban middle class - do not bother to step across to their neighbourhood polling booth on election day.

   India's average voter turnout is about 60 per cent, which places its voter participation at 85 on a table of 140 countries compiled by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a Stockholm-based intergovernmental organization that promotes democracy.

   Electoral data from the past three decades indicated that come each election in India, unlike in developed countries, the citizens at the lower end of the South Asian country's social and economic hierarchy - villagers, the poor and marginalized - turn out in large numbers to elect a new government while a more educated, wealthier but apathetic urban middle class stays at home.

   For the underdog in India, the right to cast a vote is one of the few ways to exercise power. Election time is when politicians wake up to their existence and woo them with promises of life-changing policies, jobs, subsidized food, and more direct sops like cash, blankets and saris.

   Like Kumar, millions of voters who could be counted among the less privileged come out to be counted for each election, a trend that is also proving true in the ongoing, monthlong, five-phased general elections.

   In many areas, they defy polling boycotts by militants while in others, they overcome fear of caste and communal violence to play their hand in the world's largest democratic exercise.

   In Orissa's Kandhamal district, one of the poorest regions of India, which was ravaged by Hindu-Christian violence in 2008, the turnout of voters in the first phase of the 2009 general elections on April 16 was 65.7 per cent, above the 60-per-cent national average for the first day of voting.

   Many of those who voted still live in relief camps, fearing more violence if they return home to their villages.

   India's more secure middle class, who often complain about the quality of India's politicians, do not seem to share a similar faith in the democratic system and often stay at home.

   In India's information-technology hub Bangalore, barely 46 per cent of voters cast ballots in the second phase of the elections on April 23, well below the 55-per-cent national average for the second day of voting.

   'Who do I vote for? I don't know anything about the individual candidates, and there is little to choose between India's amoral, sold-out political parties,' said Srinandan Chatterjee, an executive with a multinational company who lives in one of the many condominiums dotting Gurgaon, the suburb where Kumar works and which is home to some of India's top industrial houses.

   To nudge voters like Chatterjee to the polls, numerous web campaigns have sprung up. 'Bad politicians are chosen by good people who fail to vote,' a message on VoteIndia.in said. The website offers information about candidates, downloadable election forms and promises to track the performances of winning candidates after the elections end May 13.

   India's Election Commission and several non-governmental organizations with the support of corporations and media houses have launched similar initiatives in the run-up to the 2009 general elections.

   The organizations have engaged in direct contact with voters through volunteers, television advertisements and widespread use of new technology like the internet and mobile telephony.

   The focus of their campaigns is the urban electorate and, more particularly, an estimated 43 million first-time voters.

   Jaagore, which translates as 'wake up,' is an initiative launched in 2008 by the Bangalore-based non-profit Jaanagraha and Tata Tea, an arm of one of India's biggest conglomerates, the Tata group.

   It provides voter registration forms, local election-related news and polling day reminders that include information about the location of voting booths.

   Google, in association with the English-language Hindustan Times newspaper, has launched a website that helps voters locate their constituencies and polling stations and access area-specific development data.

   Another leading daily, The Times of India, has been encouraging people to vote through its Lead India campaign.

   Several city-specific organizations, like the non-profit Agni in Mumbai, have started mass enrolments of students who are first-time voters, such as through Agni's iVote initiative and Exercising Franchise for Good Governance, a non-profit group set up in Delhi by a citizens group whose members jog around the city and visit colleges and busy shopping centres telling people why they need to vote.

   The success of the energetic outreach would be evident once turnout data is collated after the elections end.

   Trends in the first two phases of voting, however, did not indicate any major change. But with three phases remaining - the next set for Thursday - and several big cities yet to vote, it might be too early to say.