A day in the life of the world’s largest voting exercise

Sunday, 2 June 2024

This weekend concludes the final phase of the billion-person Lok Sabha elections where two parties, BJP and Congress, are battling for power in India. Kelly Dennett travelled to Mumbai for the city’s polling day, and discovered the world’s largest democratic exercise might just be a formality when it comes to India’s populist prime minister.

A barricade on either end of Dr Viegas St in Mumbai’s Kalbadevi, as well as a guard and a sign banning photography, are the only hints as to the quiet machinations of the world’s largest democratic exercise under way on an otherwise unassuming thoroughfare between two bustling marketplaces.

It’s 9am, two hours into Maharashtra state’s polling day - the fifth phase of a billion-people, seven-part, weeks-long voting exercise in India’s five-yearly Lok Sabha elections.

A steady throb of people ebb in and out of Barretto High School, a tall, lime building. Scores of family and friends stand outside and wait patiently, holding phones, while their loved ones cast their vote, return with a symbolically-inked finger, all the while a dozen armed police dressed in beige shout into microphones and move people along, discouraging them from crowding.

The atmosphere is calm, not a hint that more than 80 million are eligible to vote at 94,732 polling stations like this across the state in just a few hours. On this street, the business of voting is a well-oiled machine with nobody having to wait long. Still, there’s some not-always-obvious simmering tension, and it would be easy for things to get out of hand, observers explain to me.

Officials are prepared for that. Here and across the broader state, thousands of flying squads and surveillance teams have been monitoring the streets to anticipate any trouble: inducement of voters, activist movements, or threats of violence. Even the border was being monitored for a potential flow of drugs, liquor, cash and anything that could be considered a ‘freebie’, the Election Commission of India says the night before.

This day, May 20, has been declared a public holiday to make it easier for people to vote - though many tell me they are returning to work anyway. The Bombay and National stock exchanges have paused. Alcohol can’t be sold - even hotel guests find their minibars cleared out with apologetic notes left in their absence the day before. Dryness is encouraged to keep the proceedings civil.

Those eligible had been strongly encouraged to vote for months - shops around Mumbai offer discounts for proof of voting - and India has become famous for the lengths it goes to to ensure its citizens participate, from carting polling booths, documentation and officials thousands of kilometres to remote mountain ranges, to focusing on ensuring the elderly, disabled and gender minorities can vote, and without fear.

“No voter left behind,” was the mantra. This year, a polling station was erected in a shipping container in Aliabet, Gujarat, for tribal electors - a particularly remote peninsula-like enclave on the west coast north of Mumbai, and some apartment buildings with elderly residents had booths, or officials went door-to-door.

Amid the extreme heat people were warned to make adjustments. The Electoral Commission says the night before that polling stations were ready to welcome voters with “ample shade, drinking water, ramps, toilets and other basic facilities”. A month earlier, a minister had fainted at a campaign rally in Maharashtra; so had a TV presenter while presenting in 43C heat in Kolkata.

Outside Barretto High School, though, a tree serves as the main source of shade for families of voters, who must take their loved one’s phone so they can enter the polling area. Phones are banned within 100m of a booth (a practical difficulty that has led to calls for a reversal of the ban). Even taking photographs of the broader area is not allowed - at least not here, right now. A guard with a mouthpiece frequently urges crowds to scatter, and warns people off loitering.

The elderly come in wheelchairs, on the backs of motorbikes. There is, briefly, unplanned entertainment: a recalcitrant cow is pulled along by its owner, before the tables turn and minutes later the cow is pulling the owner back where they came from. As the morning endures and the heat turns up to 34C, the dozens the Sunday Star-Times talks to say it’s their honour and duty to vote.

“When you vote you have a right. You don’t vote, you don’t have a right to talk and rave about a situation or what government is not supposed to do,” says Sandeep, a designer who was born in Mumbai. “Because you have the power to elect them.”

Said another voter, simply, when asked why it was important to them to cast their vote. “We want to get our prime minister re-elected. I am a supporter [of PM Narendra Modi]. If you had seen [India] the last 10 years, and where we are today, there’s a lot of changes.”

In the populous cities of India - Delhi, Mumbai - the spectre of Modi, who is seeking a third term with his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after a decade in power, is difficult to ignore. He’s revered as a politician, a celebrity and social media influencer.

He’s seen as the multiplier of India’s economic fortunes, the mastermind of its modern technological infrastructure, and the benevolent gifter to India’s vast struggling underclass. He’s also a clear frontrunner to take out another term of power, with the opposing Congress party - a once formidable party that has produced three prime ministers - trailing behind.

“Die-hard fan,” says Gajendra proudly, a few days before the election, a 30-something tour guide from Rajasthan who lives in Delhi. His wife and children live with his parents while he flats in the capital. He visits when he can, sending money home, or paying the family’s bills from his phone.

The striking change in how Gajendra can support his family is owed to the prime minister, as he tells it. Not that long ago a bank account was for the well-off, with minimum required deposits meaning they were difficult to obtain. Now, his mother, sister and sister-in-law have their own accounts, so he can send money easily. The government’s introduction of the Zero Balance Bank Account, along with India Stack, or Digital Public Infrastructure, which allows Indians to make payments through a QR code - largely creating a cashless society - have helped to supersize India’s economy.

People in rural areas can now buy and sell goods and produce easily, farmers or pensioners who relied on travelling and queuing at their local panchayat (council area) for their subsidies or pensions, sometimes to find cash had run out, now receive their e-rupees instantly. Small roadside stalls in remote areas have the QR codes. I hear stories of beggars having them. Smart phones, too, are now commonplace, and if every individual doesn’t have one, every household will, says Gajendra.

India’s fast-paced growth over the past decade has ushered in a growing young middle class with more buying power than ever - an economy that many nations across the globe, including New Zealand, are trying to court. Last year India’s economy surpassed the UK, becoming the fifth-largest in the world, and experts predict it will soon overtake Japan and Germany.

Modi’s supporters, like Gajendra, will tell you this is all owed to Modi. The digital infrastructure has slowed the proliferation of counterfeit money, made transparent who wasn’t paying tax, thwarted corruption through paper trails, and made it harder for people to skip out on bills, Gajendra says over a cup of chai.

But, Gajendra says, the digital move wasn’t necessarily instantly popular, with people having to queue outside banks to sort their currency. He uses this as an example to disprove populism claims. “The direction with which his government took, he’s never cared about the politics. It wasn’t popular when people had to queue at ATMs to sort their currency.”

But after the digital reforms, there was a surge of support for Modi, says Gajendra. “Why? Because [people] accept [the government’s] decisions, what they’ve done for them.”

Modi is not an unproblematic figure, as many in BJP stronghold areas, like the north, would have you believe. The party’s original mentor was a Hindu nationalist paramilitary organisation which advocated for a Hindu-only nation, even by force.

In the background is the country’s caste history, where Hinduism is the most popular religion. Memories of terror attacks have fuelled tensions - nearly two decades on from the horrifying 2008 Mumbai attacks, there’s a daily reminder, with every hotel and even some restaurants or shops requiring frisking, bag-checks and boot-checks.

Modi’s anti-Muslim comments have drawn sharp criticism; his populism and fierce belief in a Hindu national identity is compared to the likes of Trump, with some noting a ramping up in his Islamophobic hyperbole as his campaign for election endured.

Gajendra tackles these accusations head on, blaming the media, saying they’ve printed untruths or distorted the truth. “The media is making them up [or] the comments are coming from the [Muslim] communities. Show me any evidence. Any statement, any videos. Any comments. Handouts to Muslims? They are trying to take these words to influence the community.”

Talk to enough people in India and you feel the sense of pride they have in their country, and their government. A taxi driver, speaking little English, gestures to the colourful handpainted G20 art work that beautifies Delhi’s streets, welcoming world leaders to the summit last year. He repeats a common refrain: India has a place at the international table but it’s made independent calls on state matters without influence, in the best interests of its people.

But there are those who, while recognising the strides the country has made, speak in what feels like code - an unspoken acknowledgement that not everything is rosy.

One Agra local - the city of 2 million that’s famous for the Taj Mahal, the most famous piece of Mughal architecture in the world - speaks with disgust about Delhi as a place of corruption. India scores 39 out of 100 in transparency rankings, with zero being “highly corrupt” (ranking most recently as 93 out of 180 countries, with first being the ‘most honest’).

India is full of contrasts and contradictions that demonstrate inequality is apparent. Every truck and tuktuk driver is on their phone, and Galaxy phone billboards hover over traffic-clogged highways, seen next to makeshift tent homes. Sellers walk up to taxi windows, offering goods for sale or asking for money. Half-finished high-rises can be seen with clothing hanging out windows. Unemployment figures are not good - mostly stagnant - and young people bear the brunt of joblessness.

Deepak, a tour guide, describes Delhi as a facade; ostensibly the seat of power, but a place that was unsafe for women, where people struggled to survive. Despite some strides in attitudes towards women, it’s not uncommon, particularly in rural areas, for families to insist on women being accompanied, for women not to be allowed to work outside on their own.

Many preferred to stay out of the main centres that had attracted ballooning populations for jobs, says Deepak. “You can’t eat money,” he says, meaning, money can only take you so far. Gajendra also tells me people in smaller communities are happy in their “small lives”, without ambition, but content.

That said, Deepak admits, “most governments look after the poor or the rich. This one looks after the middle class.”

One government worker tells me he is considering leaving Delhi, as the metropolitan area, about 32 million, has become too crowded, polluted. He appears cynical when I ask him about Delhi’s polling day - five days after Mumbai’s - as he tells me that lower castes and the uneducated shouldn’t be allowed to vote, as they are easily swayed by promises. The educated would certainly vote for Modi, he clarifies.

Back in Mumbai, a businessman who travels often to western countries, who has recently returned to India, says he’s confused that the election appears to be shrouded in more societal secrecy than he ever recalled before.

“People seem afraid to say what they really think.”

Later on on Mumbai’s polling day, I travel away from the polling station to the city’s Bandra East, close to the airport and like many other areas of the city, filled with vendors selling water, packaged food, phones, parts, furniture from small open-air facades.

Further along, fish are laid out for sale by a woman who waits patiently as tuktuks and cars zoom past. The nearest polling station is 2km away, and I ask the vendors, did you vote today? Many tell me they are from out of state - this is common in the cities, and it means they are registered to vote elsewhere.

All of them, through an interpreter, speak of good lives and good business - it’s difficult to tell if they genuinely mean it, or if, as the businessman the day before echoed, they simply don’t want to swim against the current.

Twenty-eight-year-old finance worker Divyani agrees there have been many improvements to her life but there are more to go: “Everywhere, there is a giant traffic jam,” she says, not exaggerating - laughing, even, as beeps interrupt her.

“It’s an inconvenience for people, if they want to go somewhere they have to leave two hours early.”

I ask her about Modi, is she happy with the prime minister? She pauses, thinks out loud. “I don’t want to comment on this,” she says. “But I have seen the improvement, so I’m … happy with his work.” He can be controversial sometimes? “Yes, commenting on this part is very controversial [also] … [but criticism] is in every field, wherever you go, if someone is doing good, they will criticise you. If you are doing bad, they will. That is part and parcel of life.”

And does she discuss politics with her friends? “No, not really, we do not talk about this. Because, frankly, individually we know what is going on … [giving] opinion to one person, it’s not really fair.”

By the end of the day, turnout in Mumbai metropolitan areas was low - just 52% by 6pm, the fourth-highest of all the constituencies in Mumbai. Altogether the fifth phase, across the whole state, recorded a 62.2% turnout, with slightly more women voting than men. The seventh and final phase of polling finished yesterday, and counting is set to take place from Tuesday.

Unlike polling, counting is expected to happen in days, with the government thought to be announced shortly afterwards.

On Thursday, Narendra Modi appealed to the voters yet to cast their vote in Varanasi, also called Kashi, referencing his focus on further improving his constituents’ fortunes, for themselves, and for India:

“Enthusiasm should be seen at every booth,” he said. “This is my request.”

Kelly Dennett travelled to India with assistance from the Asia New Zealand Foundation. Check The Post and Sunday Star-Times in coming weeks for further investigations into India’s digital transformation, its dairy industry, and what New Zealand is doing to get a free-trade deal over the line.