Rebooting India: Realizing a Billion Aspirations (21 page)

However, an EIN cannot fix some of the fundamental issues around the education sector, issues that crop up in many other areas as well. For example, it cannot resolve the problems around the centralization of education, where schools are run from New Delhi or from the state capital. It cannot solve the problem of absentee teachers, or the poor quality of midday meals. We can only hope that complete transparency will pave the way for decentralization, where communities participate actively in their schools. Today, if alternatives are available and the family can afford it, they will immediately send their children to a private school.

We believe that centralization arises from opacity. Within different levels of government, officers can allocate funds but do not know how these are spent. This lack of information prompts risk aversion to kick in so that more rules spring up to safeguard the usage of government money. With greater transparency at all levels, we believe that money management can be decentralized and the common man on the ground can have his voice heard by those in the corridors of power.

In the years since the proposal for an EIN was first made, there has been very little progress towards implementation. In fact, Nandan had made a similar suggestion as far back as 2008, and related proposals have been mooted over the last seven years without much success. Our own efforts in this direction were stymied by what we have come to call ‘The Three Laws of Bureaucratic Evasion’. These laws have arisen from the bureaucracy’s emphasis on stability, and its discomfort with new ideas, as well as the fear that it will reduce power and control among the established players. These apply not just to the EIN but to Aadhaar and to any scheme which proposes to ‘initiate a new order of things’.

The first law is: ‘We don’t need this.’ It’s too expensive, it does not fit the Indian ‘culture and ethos’, it’s irrelevant to our problems or of dubious benefit to the people, it will not work, it will upset everyone, this is not the way we have done things—innumerable justifications can be found as to why the people of India do not need whatever it is that you are proposing to do. The second law: ‘Why are you proposing this? It belongs to some other department.’ In other words, you are treading on someone else’s toes and interfering in a project that some other agency is in charge of. And the third law: ‘It’s already being done!’ At any given time, there are dozens of projects floating around the corridors of government in various stages of completion, and any one of these can be pulled out to demonstrate that what you plan to do is already being implemented by someone else. Of course, many of these projects never actually reach closure, serving only as handy deterrents when needed.

Despite these setbacks, we remain convinced that building an Expenditure Information Network is an essential step towards reforming and modernizing India’s economy.

How do we see the future of government expenditure in India? The accompanying road map expands upon this question. The legal
framework required to set such a project in motion is already in place, and some aspects of government spending, such as subsidy transfers and welfare payments, are also moving towards an electronic disbursement model. However, the processes by which the Centre disburses funds to the states—from obtaining a grant under the budget to finally utilizing funds for various purposes—continue to remain cumbersome, opaque and riddled with delays, thanks to the hierarchical structure of fund flows and the lack of computerization. Money that is not delivered to the intended recipients in a timely fashion floats within the system, gathering dust in government bank accounts instead of being put to good use.

Once the EIN is implemented, info rmation from the last mile—details of how government money is actually being used on the ground—can be uploaded by states and government departments at their own pace. This asynchronous design will allow a complete picture of outcomes in the field to be built up over time. The hub-and-spoke model we propose combines transparency with accountability and makes expenditure information freely available, opening up endless possibilities for utilizing this data. We can build our own transparency portals to track local spending; both the government and interested citizens can combine available data to come up with new and interesting insights, and third-party developers can create apps that leverage this information to provide a better customer experience. Thanks to the massive savings and improvements in efficiency that the creation of an EIN can bring about—to the order of several billion rupees—the government can deliver a vastly improved level of service to its citizens. Projects can be funded based on their outcomes, with high performance receiving its due reward. Real-time monitoring of expenses will be possible at the grassroots level, allowing the flow of funds to be better targeted. The wealth of data this system generates can be analysed to determine geographic, demographic and temporal trends, information which can be used to drive policy-making at the national level.

With better planning, better analysis and better accountability, the EIN will drive the transformation of government into an entity that
is truly transparent, and one that uses its money wisely for the greatest good of the people it is meant to serve. Borrowing from Yamini Aiyar and T.R. Raghunandan, we can say, ‘Money must reach where it needs to and in real time. This is the minimum of maximum governance.’

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery.

—Thomas Paine, ‘Dissertation on First Principles of Government’ (1795)

IN THE 2012 Manipur assembly polls, eighty-year-old Tongsei Haokip and his wife Veinem cast their votes in Saitu constituency. Not particularly remarkable, except for the fact that the couple had been dead for some time. Apparently, they were not the only ones whose enthusiasm for exercising their franchise went beyond the grave; three other dead people also voted in the same constituency.
¹
On the other hand, many residents of Mumbai who happened to be very much alive found that they could not vote in the 2014 assembly elections because their names had been added to the list of deceased voters. Messages circulated on social media advising voters on what to do if they found themselves in this peculiar situation—they had to sign an affidavit that they were, contrary to the Election Commission’s belief, alive and residing in the area, and hence should be allowed to vote. Also in Mumbai, Deepak Parekh, the chairman of one of India’s largest
banks, HDFC, found his name missing at the polling booth where he routinely voted in previous elections.
²

The Indian public has perhaps become inured to these and other similar stories that routinely pop up in the headlines whenever it’s election season, but they are indicative of a very serious problem indeed. We are the world’s largest democracy, sustained by an electoral process that is a singular constant in a nation that has undergone all manner of change post-Independence. The right to vote is the one right that India bestows generously upon all its citizens, giving them the power to hold their leaders accountable. Errors in electoral rolls are in effect cheating the people out of an opportunity to influence the future of the nation, preventing them from being true participants in the democratic process. Cleaning up our electoral rolls is the first priority when it comes to electoral reform. In this chapter, we explore how technology can be used to transform India’s electoral process.

The independent, newly democratic India that emerged dazed and bloodied from the brutality of Partition did not inspire its observers with confidence. Former British territories and quasi-independent princely states had been cobbled together into a loose alliance held together more by a strong political will rather than a fiercely cherished national identity, and the entire Frankensteinian creation was liable to start fraying at the seams in short order—a ‘geographical expression, no more a single country than the Equator’, as Winston Churchill put it.

And yet, this untested and unlikely coalition now ranks among the world’s most stable democracies, even as other countries have managed to sustain little more than a fitful flirtation with the idea. We as a nation have displayed a remarkable dedication to the idea of free and fair elections as the lifeblood of a democratic society. The cynics among us may point to the dramatic headlines of booth capturing and rigging that pop up during every election, or feel that their vote has no impact on the political establishment. But the fact remains that every few years, whether old or young, rich or poor, farmer or movie star,
Indians faithfully line up outside their local polling booths to exercise their inalienable right as citizens of this country, that of casting their ballot to choose their future leaders.

Independence-era India was riven by a multitude of socio-economic fault lines—the average Indian at that time could expect to live only to thirty-two, and less than a fifth of the population could read and write.
³
When it came to the electoral sphere, however, all diffidence was shed for a bold, hard-charging approach where every eligible Indian was granted the right to vote, with no barriers of class, caste or gender being considered. The western world had approached universal suffrage with great caution, doling out votes first only to men, and amongst them the landed gentry. It took years of protests and civil movements before women, for example, were allowed to participate in elections. New Zealand was the world’s first country to grant its citizens universal suffrage in 1893; the United Kingdom followed thirty-five years later, and it took the United States seventy-two years to catch up.
⁴

In contrast, India bypassed the entire argument by granting universal suffrage from the get-go. Since then, elections in India have been a spectacle on a grand scale, a festival of democracy that the whole world looks to. While we analyse the ways in which technology can help to strengthen the voting process, it is instructional to look back and see how elections in India have evolved over the last sixty-odd years, a time in which sixteen general elections have been successfully held.

In his book
India after Gandhi
, the eminent historian Ramachandra Guha describes what it took for India to hold its first-ever general election in 1952, a process he refers to as ‘the biggest gamble in history’.
⁵
A hundred and seventy-six million Indians were eligible to vote, and their names and other details had to be painstakingly collected and recorded to build India’s first-ever voter roll. Sixteen thousand and five hundred clerks were appointed on six-month contracts to type and collate the rolls by constituency; the printing of these rolls consumed over a hundred million sheets of paper. In order to ensure that the elections were conducted smoothly, 56,000 presiding officers were employed, as were 280,000 helpers and 224,000 policemen; 389,816 phials of indelible ink were used to mark the fingers of those who had
voted, and the entire exercise cost the exchequer over Rs 100 million.
⁶

Then, as now, the press coverage of the election carried stories of villagers who walked for miles to vote, and tribals who made the arduous trek through impenetrable forests to reach the nearest polling booth. The elderly turned out too, leaning on crutches or propped up by their relatives. In a trend that persists to the current day, rural and working-class India participated in far greater numbers than the affluent middle class;
⁷
the
Times of India
reported that in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), long queues formed outside polling stations in the industrial areas of the city, with workers braving the morning chill, while in the fashionable Malabar Hill neighbourhood, ‘it appeared as if people straggled in for a game of tennis or bridge and only incidentally to vote’.

Election officers too went the extra mile, rather literally in some cases, to ensure that the elections were conducted smoothly. One official walked for six days to attend a preparatory workshop, while a fellow colleague had to endure a four-day mule ride. Bridges were built across rivers and naval vessels were pressed into service to make sure that every remote village and island received a copy of its electoral roll. In one village, the polling station was a schoolhouse with only one door. The rules mandated that the same point could not be used for both entry and exit; the solution was to convert one of the windows into a second door, complete with makeshift steps to help voters hop out once they’d cast their ballot.

The job of managing this mammoth exercise fell to the Election Commission of India (EC), established on 25 January 1950 as an autonomous body responsible for all electoral processes in the country. Since then, the Election Commission has undergone its own share of reform in the interests of eliminating electoral fraud and ensuring that a citizen’s right to vote is safeguarded.

Pudgy and dour, T.N. Seshan hardly seemed like the kind of swashbuckling hero who could take on the establishment and win.
And yet, the reforms that Seshan instituted during his tenure as the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) completely changed the face of Indian elections. Faced with complaints that elections had now become rather dull and lacklustre affairs, Seshan acerbically retorted, ‘If they want sound and colour, the cinema halls are always open.’

The organization that Seshan headed, the EC, is responsible for conducting elections in a manner both fair and free. From the day the candidates file their nominations until the results are declared, they must operate under an electoral code of conduct, and it is the EC’s job to ensure that this code is strictly adhered to. The EC functions under a set of constitutional safeguards designed to protect its neutrality and independence; for example, its funding is drawn directly from the Consolidated Fund of India, the government’s exchequer, without requiring approvals from any other government agencies, bureaucrats or politicians. It is a small organization by design, with only around 300 employees; come election season, that number swells to nearly 5 million polling personnel and civil police forces, drawn from the civil services on deputation. This temporary workforce dissolves once the elections are over.
⁸

Despite these regulations, Indian elections were notoriously corrupt and ridden with fraud, a state of affairs that took a turn for the better when Seshan assumed office. Taking refuge in the letter of the law, Seshan in his capacity as CEC insisted upon a strict implementation of the model code of conduct. He confronted the political establishment head-on, asking the prime minister to expel senior Cabinet ministers for unduly influencing voters and threatening any politico who broke the rules with immediate disqualification. ‘Al-Seshan’ was just one of the many sobriquets the belligerent Seshan earned from the press; far from being embarrassed, he revelled in the image of himself as a ferocious watchdog guarding the elections, pointing out that perhaps it would be better to call him a bulldog since the resemblance was greater.
⁹

Under Seshan’s watch, security levels were beefed up; in the 1995 assembly polls in Bihar, a state notorious for brazen booth capturing and widespread electoral fraud, 650 companies of paramilitary forces
were brought in to maintain law and order. Forced to toe the EC line, politicians now had to wind up their speeches before the official deadline. The endless motorcades, loud and colourful political rallies, the open distribution of alcohol, money and other freebies to entice voters, the many instances of booth capturing and voter intimidation—all of these became a thing of the past as the model code of conduct was rigorously enforced.
¹⁰

Voter ID cards became mandatory, and under Seshan’s stewardship a nationwide programme was implemented to issue these cards to all eligible voters. Today, these cards have become an important form of ID in India, not just for elections but for many other public and private services as well. Thanks to Seshan’s aggressive tactics, elections in India have become far less of a tamasha. What they have lost in pomp and extravagance, they have gained in guaranteeing that every eligible citizen of India can cast his or her vote without coercion, bribery or fraud.

The electoral reforms of the 1990s set the ball rolling for a much-needed clean-up of elections in India, but their domain ended the moment the voter stepped into the booth. The actual process of casting one’s vote was equally in need of an overhaul, a problem magnified by the scale on which Indian elections traditionally operate. In the 2014 general election, the number of people that turned out to vote was greater than the entire population of Europe.
¹¹
In 1952, a staggering 85 per cent of the electorate was unable to either read or write; although those numbers have improved, a significant chunk of the Indian populace continues to remain largely illiterate. How, then, does one design, build and operate a voting system that makes allowances for this fact while still granting the right to exercise one’s franchise in a free, fair and informed manner?

The early answer to this question was the paper ballot, a method that continued to remain in use until fairly recently. Simple to use and easy to set up, it required voters to stamp the ballot next to the name
and party symbol of their chosen candidate before folding the ballot in half and dropping it into the ballot box. However, the system had its share of drawbacks. If the ballot was incorrectly folded, the stamped ink was liable to smear, sometimes rendering the ballot invalid. Since the paper wasn’t reusable, a fresh batch of ballots had to be printed for every election, driving up costs. Tallying the stamped ballots was slow, cumbersome and prone to error. Most importantly, the system was vulnerable to fraud. Supporters of a political party could, and sometimes did, capture a polling booth by force, stuffing ballot boxes with thousands of pre-stamped ballot papers to get their candidate to win, while preventing legitimate voters from casting their vote.

Starting in 1999, the EC decided to tackle the weaknesses of the paper-voting system by abandoning it altogether in favour of electronic voting, a process chronicled in
Imagining India
.
¹²
As Nandan wrote, ‘India’s elections have typically been corrupt and chaotic, with “ballot-box stuffing” part of the nuts and bolts of getting yourself elected, and voting fraud in some areas has been as high as 40 per cent. The electronic voting machines (EVMs) considerably reduced the problem of ballot stuffing.’ This ‘electronification of India’s elections’ was the first major application of technology towards improving the voter experience. Other countries continue to struggle with electronic voting—Germany, for example—and some, like Ireland and the Netherlands, have reversed their decision on electronic voting. However, recognizing the value of such a system in cleaning up India’s electoral process, the EC implemented electronic voting across the nation.

The EVMs have been designed and built indigenously to specifications laid down by the EC, with features meant to prevent fraud while also being simple enough to meet the needs of a socially and geographically diverse country.
¹³
They are entirely battery-powered and do not need any external power source, important in a country where the uninterrupted supply of electricity is far from a given. The physical design is rugged and compact so that they can be easily transported to the thousands of polling booths across challenging terrain. They are cheap to make and easy to use. Much like the paper-
ballot system, EVMs have also been designed keeping in mind that many users are largely uneducated and may not be comfortable with operating electronic devices. The interface between the user and the device is as simple and uncluttered as possible so that the voters are not confused or intimidated into making an error. All the voter has to do is to press a button on the EVM corresponding to their choice of candidate, and their vote is recorded.