The debate surrounding the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is easily among the most weird passions of our public life. Just as every Indian must prescribe you medicine for every known and unknown disease, every Indian who can barely type an SMS must have an opinion on EVM software. After suffering hundreds of hours of confidential, hush-hush, gyan on this subject, I have realised that a combination of love for democracy, sense of helplessness and longing for science fiction is injurious to a country’s political health. Over the last 15 years, the cast of characters has changed but the script has remained the same, even after the introduction of VVPAT machines. So far, this debate has only served to sow seeds of deep suspicion about the entire exercise of elections while distracting from some real electoral malpractices that remain under the radar. It is time to develop a national consensus on some small steps to put this debate to rest and move on to the more substantive issues of democratic reforms.
The EVM debate is the final point in the descent of our democratic imagination. In the 1960s and ’70s, we had debates on transforming the way democracy works by rethinking the party system, ensuring de-centring of political power or shifting to proportional representation. By the 1990s, the debate had narrowed to electoral reforms, on conducting free and fair elections through an independent Election Commission that enforces the Model Code of Conduct. Of late, the debate has been circumscribed further to electoral integrity, on how to prevent electoral fraud during polling and counting process. The EVM is a small subset of this already pared-down agenda.
In this context, the Lok Sabha elections provided an unusual opening. The surprising outcome put to rest the........