Ballot boxes, inking fingers: An 85-year-old remembers India’s first General Election

The hectic electioneering all around and the news of the first two phases of the general election take me back to India’s first polls in 1952.

I was then a 13-year-old studying in Mumbai. It was my school winter vacation and I was spending the holidays with my uncle in Balaghat, a district headquarters then part of Central Provinces, now in Madhya Pradesh. Electricity had not reached Balaghat yet. So petromax lights and lanterns were used and manual pankhas were installed in the bedrooms and the dining room.

A rope outside strung along pulleys would be pulled by a man outside the room to make the fan sway to and fro.

My uncle, who was the executive engineer in the public works department of the new government, was assigned the task of supervising the electoral process over a certain area in Balaghat district. My cousin Bobby and I tagged along with my uncle.

There was a truck carrying ballot boxes and other equipment. My uncle, his clerk and us two boys travelled in the Vauxhall car. It was quite an adventure for us, and off we went, oblivious of the historic event that we were to participate in.

The night halt was in a dak bungalow en route to the...

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