First general election

Also called: 1951-52 general election · Topic: Era of One-Party Dominance: First Elections and the Congress System · NCERT: Class 8, Ch 5 "Universal Franchise and India's Electoral System"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Era of One-Party Dominance"

Meaning

The first general election was India's first nationwide vote to choose the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies at the same time. Polling ran from October 1951 to February 1952. It was held under universal adult franchise (every adult citizen can vote), and 489 Lok Sabha seats were filled. The first Chief Election Commissioner, Sukumar Sen, conducted it [2].

It matters because most voters were poor and could not read, yet the election was fair and even the losing parties accepted the results. This showed the world that democracy can work in a poor country.

Explanation

Legal base

• Election Commission of India (ECI): the constitutional body that runs elections. Article 324 gives it the "superintendence, direction and control" of elections.
• Universal adult franchise (Article 326): every adult citizen can vote. Property, education, caste and sex do not matter.
• In 1951-52 the voting age was 21.

• The 61st Amendment, 1988 later lowered it to 18.

• Reserved seats: these are seats that only Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates can contest. Article 330 reserves them in the Lok Sabha and Article 332 in state assemblies.

• Two laws made the poll possible:
• The Representation of the People Act, 1950 covers seats, constituencies and electoral rolls (the lists of voters).

• The Representation of the People Act, 1951 covers how elections are run, who can stand, corrupt practices and election disputes.

• Sukumar Sen was the first CEC, from 21 March 1950 to 19 December 1958. He had almost no earlier example to follow [2].

How the poll was conducted

• Postponed twice. In the end, polling ran from October 1951 to February 1952.
• The first votes were cast at Chini (Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh) on 25 October 1951. This hill area voted early, before snow closed the roads.
• The "1952 election": it gets this name because most of the country voted in January 1952.
• Six months: campaigning, polling and counting together took about six months.
• Simultaneous elections: the Lok Sabha and all state assemblies were elected at the same time.
• A real contest:
• 1,874 candidates stood for the Lok Sabha. That is about 4.67 candidates per seat [3]. NCERT says "more than four candidates" per seat.

• Only 45 candidates were women [3].

• Turnout (the share of voters who actually voted):

• ECI figures put it at about 45%.
• NCERT says "more than half" of those eligible voted.

Seats and constituencies

• The 489 Lok Sabha seats were spread over 401 constituencies.
• Double-member constituency: a constituency that elected two members.
• One seat was general and the other was reserved for SCs or STs.

• This gave the reserved group a seat without drawing a separate constituency for it.

• Until the 1957 election, some constituencies elected 2 or 3 members [3].

• The Two-Member Constituencies (Abolition) Act, 1961 ended this. Since then every constituency elects one member.

How people voted: one box per candidate

• Election symbol: a picture linked to a party or candidate, such as Congress's pair of bullocks in 1952. Voters who could not read could still choose.
• Each polling booth had one ballot box for each candidate, marked with that candidate's symbol.
• The voter got a blank ballot paper and dropped it into the box of the chosen candidate.
• About 20 lakh steel boxes were used in 1952.
• A presiding officer in Punjab described preparing the boxes at home:
• The boxes were labelled in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi and smoothed with sandpaper.

• The job took six people, including his two daughters, five hours.

• This method was used in 1952 and 1957. From 1962, a single ballot paper listed every candidate, and the voter stamped the chosen name.

In the Constitution and practice

• Constitutional base:
• Article 324: the ECI controls elections.
• Article 326: universal adult franchise.

• Articles 330 and 332: SC/ST reserved seats.

• Statutory base: the RP Act, 1950 and the RP Act, 1951.

• Who ran it: the ECI under CEC Sukumar Sen. He also ran the 1957 election, again together with the assembly polls [2].
• Outcome:
• The poll was peaceful and fair, and the losing parties accepted the results.
• Times of India: the polls "confounded all those sceptics" who doubted that universal suffrage (the vote for all adults) could work in India.

• Hindustan Times: "the largest experiment in democratic elections in the history of the world".

• Congress side:

• Shankar's 1951 cartoon shows Nehru's committee choosing Congress candidates. The members shown were Morarji Desai, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, B.C. Roy, K. Kamaraj, C. Rajagopalachari, Jagjivan Ram, Maulana Azad, D.P. Mishra, P.D. Tandon and G.B. Pant.

• The cartoon shows that, inside the dominant party, choosing candidates largely decided the result.

• Lasting effects:

• Democracy at scale: the election set up universal adult franchise as a working practice in a poor, largely illiterate country. Before this, democracy was found mostly in rich, literate countries of Europe and North America.
• Simultaneous polls: Lok Sabha and assembly elections stayed in step in 1957, 1962 and 1967.
• Changes it led to: double-member seats were abolished in 1961. The single stamped ballot came in 1962. Much later, EVMs were used across the country in 2004 [4].

Don't confuse with

• "1952 election" vs "1951 election": both names mean the same poll. It ran from October 1951 to February 1952, but it is called the 1952 election because most voting took place in January 1952.
• Double-member constituency vs reserved single-member constituency: before 1961, one constituency elected one general member and one SC/ST member. Since the 1961 Abolition Act, each reserved constituency elects only one member.
• One box per candidate (1952, 1957) vs single stamped ballot (from 1962): in the first method the voter dropped a blank paper into the chosen candidate's box. In the second, the voter stamped one paper that listed every candidate.
• Sukumar Sen vs S.L. Shakdhar: Sen was the first CEC and ran the 1952 and 1957 polls [2]. Shakdhar was the CEC who proposed electronic voting in 1977 [4].

Prelims Hooks

• The first general election ran from October 1951 to February 1952. The first votes were cast at Chini, Kinnaur (HP), on 25 October 1951.
• The first CEC was Sukumar Sen (1950-58). He conducted the 1952 and 1957 elections [2].
• 1,874 candidates stood for 489 seats (about 4.67 per seat), spread over 401 constituencies. Only 45 women stood [3].
• Turnout: NCERT says "more than half" and ECI says about 45%. An option claiming "over 60%" is a trap.
• The voting age was 21 in 1951-52. The 61st Amendment, 1988 lowered it to 18 (Article 326).
• The quote "largest experiment in democratic elections in the history of the world" is from the Hindustan Times, not the Times of India. Double-member seats were abolished by the Two-Member Constituencies (Abolition) Act, 1961.

Mains Points

• Democracy before development (GS-I):
• India gave every adult the vote at once, even though most adults could not read. Western democracies widened the vote slowly.
• Election symbols and simple voting methods made this possible.

• The losers' acceptance of the results showed that people do not need to be literate to choose wisely.

• Simultaneous elections and "One Nation, One Election" (GS-II):

• Lok Sabha and assembly polls were held together from 1951-52 to 1967 [2]. The cycle broke when several assemblies were dissolved early in 1967-71.
• Benefits: lower cost and less disruption from constant campaigning.

• Concerns: risks to federalism (the sharing of power between the Union and the states) and the problem of assemblies being dissolved early.

• Designing fair representation (GS-II):

• Double-member seats guaranteed SC/ST representation, but they made constituencies very large.
• Votes from the general population could also decide who won the reserved seat.
• The 1961 abolition moved India to single-member reserved constituencies, which are still used today.

Related concepts

• Paper ballot

Read more

• The first general election, 1951-52, and changing methods of voting