30   Politics in India sinc Independence

Politics in India sinc Independence appeared very bold and risky. An Indian editor called it “the biggest gamble in history”. Organiser, a magazine, wrote that Jawaharlal Nehru “would live to confess the failure of universal adult franchise in India”. A British member of the Indian Civil Service claimed that “a future and more enlightened age will view with astonishment the absurd farce of recording the votes of millions of illiterate people”. The elections had to be postponed twice and finally held from October to February . But this election is referred to as the election since most parts of the country voted in January . It took six months for the campaigning, polling and counting to be completed. Elections were competitive – there were on an average more than four candidates for each seat. The level of participation was encouraging — more than half the eligible voters turned out to vote on the day of elections. When the results were declared these were accepted as fair even by the losers. The Indian experiment had proved the critics wrong. The Times of India held that the polls have “confounded all those sceptics who thought the introduction of adult franchise too risky an experiment in this country”. The Hindustan Times claimed that “there is universal agreement that the Indian people have conducted themselves admirably in the largest experiment in democratic elections in the history of the world”. Observers outside India were equally impressed. India’s general election of became a landmark in the history of democracy all over the world. It was no longer possible to argue that democratic elections could not be held in conditions of poverty or lack of education. It proved that democracy could be practiced anywhere in the world. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad ( - ): original name — Abul Kalam Mohiyuddin Ahmed; scholar of Islam; freedom fighter and Congress leader; proponent of Hindu- Muslim unity; opposed to Partition; member of Constituent Assembly; Education Minister in the first cabinet of free India.