Déjà View | Ballot blowback

The sixth Lok Sabha elections in independent India were held over five days from 16 to 20 March 1977. In one sense it produced the first great upset in Indian electoral politics. The Janata Party’s alliance, led by Morarji Desai, romped home winning 345 of the 542 seats in the Lok Sabha. For the first time since Independence, the Congress and its allies had to make do with second place, winning just 189 seats.

But then, in another sense, it was no great upset at all. The 1977 elections were held shortly after the end of the national state of Emergency that had been declared by Indira Gandhi in 1975. The atrocities of this period are well known. And there is little real dispute that it was one of the lowest points in the history of the Indian Republic. Writers such as Ramachandra Guha and Pratap Bhanu Mehta have also suggested that the Emergency helped to fundamentally weaken many important Indian institutions.

So then the outcome of the 1977 elections should not come as a surprise. An incumbent government that suspended democracy was summarily thrown out by the voter. Democracy, therefore, had the last word. Hurrah.

But a closer examination of the election data suggests a somewhat more complex and interesting story.

In 1971, when the Congress formed the government with 352 seats, it contested 441 seats and secured 43.68% of the vote. One would expect that in 1977 the Congress would have been punished severely. Instead the alliance led by the Congress—it had run alone in 1971—still managed to garner 40.98% of the vote. Thus, Indira Gandhi’s team, so to speak, suffered a negative vote swing of just 2.7%.

You would also assume that given the momentous symbolic significance of the 1977 elections, voters would have thronged the polling booths in record numbers. Turnout did increase. From 55.25% in 1971, it jumped to 60.49% in 1977. Which looks impressive.

But wait. Turnouts were larger in 1952, 1957 and 1967. So there wasn’t exactly a tsunami of voters out to teach the government a lesson. Many people didn’t turn up to vote.

This is when many readers will point out that the 1977 polls were a case of intense north-south divisions in Indian politics. The south was spared the worst of the Emergency’s excesses, while the north had to deal with all kinds of atrocities.

This is perhaps shown by the Congress’ collapse in Bihar and Haryana. In Bihar, the Congress vote share fell from 40.06% to 22.9% in 1977. In Haryana, the collapse was even steeper—from 52.56% to 17.95%. In Uttar Pradesh, it fell from 48.54% to 24.99%.

Yes, the Congress did much better in the southern states. But also elsewhere. True to general perceptions, in 1977, the Congress’s vote share increased in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. But it also increased in West Bengal and Gujarat. In Gujarat, the Congress retained 10 of the 11 seats it won in 1971.

There are also interesting patterns to be seen in individual seats. Take Rae Bareli for instance—a constituency that is in many ways at the heart of the Emergency story. Despite all the heat and fury, the turnout in Rae Bareli actually fell from 55.22% to 54.16%. Indira Gandhi garnered 122,517 votes but was beaten comfortably by Raj Narain.

Chandni Chowk, on the other hand, saw an explosion in turnout. This was a constituency that witnessed one of Sanjay Gandhi’s hugely controversial slum destruction drives. The turnout hit 82.98%, with Sikander Bakht of the Janata Party getting 71.91% of the vote. Somehow, despite Chandni Chowk being a direct witness to the high-handedness of the Emergency, the Congress still polled 29.57% of the votes in the constituency.

And finally, we come to Morarji Desai’s Surat.

Desai was the man who galvanized the opposition against the Congress and the Gandhis. And the man who became prime minister. And yet Desai actually saw his vote share fall slightly in Surat. In 1971, Desai won Surat with 53.43% of the vote. In 1977, his share fell to 52.46%. What is even more interesting is that the Congress vote share in Surat actually increased.

But the point I am trying to make is not that I want to break the world record for most statistics in an 850-word column.

I want to broach the fact that many voters in 1977 appear to not have seen the Emergency in the clear black-and-white terms we see it today. Today, we talk of it being as a black spot on democracy and Indian democracy’s darkest hour. And yet a significant portion of voters in the southern states didn’t think of it that way. Many in the northern states didn’t either.

Suspension of civil liberties should strike fear into the heart of every citizen of a democracy.

Far too many people think of the Emergency in benign terms. And this appears to have been the case right from 1977. That is a perilous state of affairs. How much are we willing to sacrifice at the altar of punctual trains? Guys, we need to talk about this.

The hours may still become dark, but so many eyes are already blind.

Every week, Déjà View scours historical research and archives to make sense of current news and affairs.

Comment at views@livemint.com. To read Sidin Vadukut’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/dejaview