Sham Democracy?

By Seema Sengupta

KOLKATA ― Indians are often found basking in the glory of being part of a mammoth democratic structure that empowers the citizens with the free right to elect and reject lawmakers every five years.

We take pride in the fact that the will of the people expressed through free and fair elections on the basis of universal, equal and secret suffrages forms the source of state authority.

But an insight into the state of electoral affairs in the communist ruled province of West Bengal belies this holier-than-thou image.

The abject failure of the Indian Election Commission to prevent rampant electoral malpractice has resulted in this intellectually rich province witnessing massive voting fraud since the 1980s.

Subversion here begins at the level of listing voters and extends to the stage of counting. The entire blueprint is chalked out at the regional communist headquarters in Kolkata and approved by the central apparatchiks.

The details are carefully executed by members of the communist frontal organizations who form the bulk of the polling personnel supervising electoral modalities.

At the outset, the electoral roll, which remains the foundation of a true democracy, is manipulated through heavily unionized government employees assigned with the task of enrolling and deleting names of voters.

These employees, including teachers attached to communist unions, disenfranchise probable dissenters. Since, the commission in India has no staff of its own to conduct polls, these highly motivated and politicized employees working on behalf of the election body throttle the democratic process easily.

For example, the names of dead voters and those who have shifted to different constituencies are rarely deleted. Names of fake, underage voters are deliberately enlisted while those who are likely to vote against the ruling coalition will find their names missing from the electoral roll.

Moreover, there are glaring irregularities in the distribution of electoral photo identity cards, bunches of which are handed out to the cadres entrusted with casting false votes.

Though this has resulted in an abysmally low population to voter ratio, the percentage of polling in favor of the ruling communists crosses 90 percent in several places.

This is a clear manifestation of electoral rigging that has been ignored by the election authority for unknown reasons. The communists have also invented a novel method of identifying the mindset of voters.

On Election Day, a communist cadre would put a particular type of chemical on the party's key in the electronic voting machine. Thus all those voting thereafter and pressing the same key will contract it in their finger.

The election staff loyal to the communists will note it while putting the indelible ink, the official mark of adult franchise in India.

Though it might seem strange that elections in a thriving democracy are conducted on the basis of massive fraudulence and manipulated electoral roll, this has been a standard practice for the last three decades.

The commission has been generally ignorant of the high-handedness of the communists whose cadres and musclemen patrol the countryside prior to elections terrorizing the voters and opposition candidates.

In fact, the supreme election body deliberately suppressed a 10-page report of a special election observer that exposed the scientific ways of rigging adopted by the ruling communists.

That there is a vested interest working overtime to whitewash the communist atrocities and wrongdoings is evident from the commission's reluctance to share the copy of the sensitive document with this columnist.

The most sinister part of the communist strategy of pillaging the entire democratic process is the branding of dissenters as extremists by an overtly politicized and partisan administration.

The entire administration in the province being highly partial right from top to bottom plays a significant role in tampering the democratic rights of citizens.

While the top police and administrative officials are mostly one-time members of the communist student wing or sympathizers of socialist ideology, the junior staff are attached to the ruling party through their unions.

Thus, the communist party has over the years usurped the power of the administration in a subtle way thereby turning West Bengal into a de-facto unitary province.

This is precisely the reason why the anti-incumbency effect has been mysteriously absent for the last three decades, despite the deteriorating socioeconomic condition and a poor law and order situation.

Unfortunately, the media in West Bengal by and large has been bribed and coerced into paralysis as the communists successfully penetrated their ranks.

Even an honest journalist who would otherwise prefer to remain faithful to neutral journalism is forced to take sides or else doors are slammed on him or her abruptly.

Finally, it is rather intriguing that India being the largest democratic member of Inter-Parliamentary Council, espousing the cause of free and fair elections, encourages the blatant subversion of democratic rights in her own backyard.

Seema Sengupta is a journalist based in Kolkata, India. Her articles have been published by The Tribune, The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Asian Age and other newspapers. She can be reached at seemasengupta@vsnl.net.