Ramachandra Guha: Why 2024 is India’s most important election since 1977

Indians have begun voting in the country’s 18th general election. Of the 17 previous iterations, two were particularly important. One was the first general election, held in 1951-1952. That exercise was widely mocked by sceptics who believed that Indians were too poor, too divided, and too illiterate to be granted the right to choose their leaders.

A maharaja, who had reluctantly joined the Indian Union, told a visiting American couple that any Constitution that sanctioned universal suffrage in a land of illiterates was “crazy”. A Madras editor complained that “a very large majority [will] exercise votes for the first time: not many know what the vote is, why they should vote, and whom they should vote for; no wonder the whole adventure is rated as the biggest gamble in history.” And the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Organisation weekly, Organiser, loftily remarked that “Pandit Nehru would live to confess the failure of universal adult franchise in India”.

Yet the gamble worked. A variety of parties and individuals representing different ideological persuasions contested the election, and adult men and women freely chose among them. The successful holding of that first election was a major milestone in Indian history. Later elections in 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1971 consolidated the gains made in...

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