As someone who has witnessed four presidential elections in the United States of America and voted, as well as reported copiously on the Indian parliamentary elections, I cannot resist from making comparisons between the ongoing electoral exercise in India and the one imminent in the US. The two nations differ in economic size, political and social evolution, global heft, ethnic composition and even the democratic setups, but India and the US are the largest democracies in the Global South and the Global North, respectively.
In the US, elections are relatively devoid of colourful electoral canvassing like in India although the big public rallies are common. But in many parts of urban India, colourful campaigns have gone missing; they have been replaced by public rallies and social media messaging. In the US, every state has an Election Commission with its own governing laws that have often resulted in allegations of foul play by the losing side. The infamous 2000 US election, which was de facto decided by the US Supreme Court as it overruled the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling of a recount, is a case in point. In India, ever since T.N. Seshan’s time as the election commissioner, the Election Commission has been proactive in publicising its commitment to the integrity of the poll process. In fact, in August 2004, I, as part of a group, remember being asked by Utah Election Commission officials at Salt Lake City about the electronic voting machines in India and whether anyone has concerns about them. Till then, there had been no major concern with EVMs among political parties as the EC had been over-zealous in allaying the apprehensions. In 2024, the Opposition didn’t even get a meeting with the Commission to discuss the use of EVMs and voter verifiable paper audit trails.
In the US, swing states decide the electoral outcome as the results in Red and Blue states are foregone conclusions. For instance, New York and California are Blue states whereas Texas and South Carolina are Red states. The expected swing states in 2024 are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Political parties more or less concentrate their campaigns in swing states. In India, states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are considered as strongholds of the Bharatiya Janata Party whereas Tamil Nadu and Kerala are firmly with the Opposition. That explains the lackadaisical campaign by the Opposition in Gujarat. However, even though a level playing field has been clearly denied to the Opposition, there are states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar, Karnataka, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh where it is putting up a good fight.
The US’s political history is laden with institutionalised injustices against African-Americans and other minorities. The civil rights movement brought a change with heightened sensitivity of the political class over issues related to social justice agenda and historical injustice. This consensus among the political class, however, was reversed as a dog-whistle narrative was brought back by Donald Trump in his presidential campaign in 2016. For instance, he blamed Asians and Central-Americans for illegal migration to tap into the economic and the social anxieties of the poor white American population.
While the context is much different, as no community can be termed as immigrants in India, there is still an impulse to rile up majoritarian anxieties: Narendra Modi’s recent remarks in Rajasthan are an example in which he accused the Congress of aiming to take away the assets of the majority community and give it to “infiltrators”. The use of the word, “infiltrators”, in the BJP lexicon came up in the 1990s as part of the demand to check the alleged illegal inflow of Bangladeshi Muslim migrants. The irony today is that Bangladesh’s per capita income is higher than that of India and it seems there is no economic incentive for anyone to migrate to India.
Another similarity is in the broad trends of how two national political parties are approaching the creation of an electoral base. In the US, coupled with a social welfare agenda, the Democratic Party wants a rainbow coalition, comprising the blue-collar, white population in the swing states and African-American voters and other minorities to ensure its victory as it did in the 2020 presidential elections. In India, the BJP’s strategy is to make the elections a pan-India affair as it wants the varied ethnic, caste and class groups of the Hindu population to vote merely on the basis of their religious identity. Apart from minorities, the Opposition seeks to appeal to various sections within the Hindu population, including marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward caste groups, with customised programmes for each. There is also the assertion of regional pride by regional parties to block the BJP’s narrative.
The issue of electoral bonds in India — they have been declared illegal by the Supreme Court — has some parallels with the Super Political Action Committees in the US. The conceptualisation of the two may be different as Super PACs can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and organisations (such as corporations and labour unions) but they “cannot directly contribute money to or work directly in concert with the candidate it is supporting.” This is true only on paper. However, Super PACs may be more transparent as the list of contributors is known to the public. The absolute servility of the Republican leadership to Trump is another theme that runs parallel with Modi’s complete domination of the BJP.
There are striking distinctions too that are noteworthy. For instance, from 2016-2020, various civil servants in the US openly differed with the decisions of the then president, Trump, that were seemingly violative of the Constitution or statutes. This is not so in India’s case. The public criticism of the Opposition by the Indian ambassador to Ireland is a case in point as it violates the guidelines to the civil servants’ code of professional ethics. A credible media, with the exception of conservative outlets, is another pillar that ensured that the electorate remained informed of the egregious conduct of Trump. The same was the case with the intellectual elite as being conscientious and speaking truth to power are seen as important responsibilities of citizenship. These
distinctions, which include internalising the difference between citizen and subject, matter in determining the overall robustness and fairness of an electoral process.
Luv Puri has worked with the UNHQ in political affairs for a decade
