The first general election

After the Second World War, many newly free countries chose non-democratic rule: a single party, a dictator or the army, often saying that unity and development came first. India chose democracy, and saw politics as a peaceful way to settle disagreements and solve problems.

To hold free elections, India needed an independent referee. The Election Commission was set up in January 1950, with Sukumar Sen as the first Chief Election Commissioner.

The task was enormous:

• Draw the boundaries of every constituency.
• Prepare electoral rolls: lists of everyone with the right to vote. There were about 17 crore voters, and only about 15 per cent of them could read and write.
• About 3,200 MLAs and 489 MPs had to be elected.

A telling problem: many women were listed on the rolls not by their own names but as 'wife of' or 'daughter of' someone. The Commission refused to accept this and ordered the rolls revised, so about 40 lakh women had to be listed again by name.

How do people who cannot read choose a candidate? Each candidate was given a symbol, and at first each had a separate ballot box marked with that symbol. Later, a single ballot paper listing the names and symbols was stamped. Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) came in from the late 1990s, and were used across the whole country by 2004.

The election was held from October 1951 to February 1952. More than half of the eligible voters cast their votes, and the results were accepted peacefully, even by the losers.

Many critics had said democracy could not work in a poor, mostly unlettered country. India proved them wrong, and the 1952 election became a landmark for democracy everywhere.