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The adoption of universal adult franchise, as the first Chief Election Commissioner Sukumar Sen said, was a “massive act of faith”, and its implementation was a colossal task, unparalleled in the history of humankind. Sutured to collective expression of sovereignty and capacity for self-determination, it marked a rupture from colonial subjection. Restricted franchise under colonialism was sustained by a structure of alliance between imperial, feudal and masculinist ideologies that buttressed the empire against challenges presented by the anti-colonial movement.

Construed as inherently dangerous, the right to vote was handed down gradually and cautiously. Universal franchise was integral to citizenship’s promise of equality, remarkable for its potential to unsettle the foundations of inequality through rightful claims to participate in the exercise of political power.

A prior consensus on universal adult franchise existed in the Constituent Assembly, drawing from the anti-colonial movement and swaraj as a constitutional future. As a democratic principle, recognising the claims of each person to sovereign personhood, it became consequential for choosing parliamentary democracy as the preferred form of government.

The enormity of the task was depicted in a series of cartoons by Shankar Pillai, who used the figure of first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru as a critical prism to explore the inaugural years of the republic. Shankar depicted universal adult franchise in one of the cartoons as akin to moving an elephant by its tail – a humongous task –ponderous when initiated but emphatic and majestic when set in motion.

In the narrative report of the first general election, Sen also describes the “chequered history” of the preparation of the electoral roll in India between 1948 and 1951. Sen attributes this to the non-existence of an electoral law in the early stages of the preparation of electoral rolls, the non-completion of the delimitation exercise and the absence, until March 1950, of a “whole-time central directing or supervisory authority” to oversee the preparations.

The preparation of the electoral rolls, which “proceeded on presumptions” was unsettled when the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RPA) came into operation, necessitating “a full scale revision of the draft rolls” to meet the requirements of new eligibility rules. The rolls, when finally published in November 1951, were not as accurate or satisfactory as the Chief Election Commissioner would have wished. They demonstrated, however, a collective will to make the transition to a republican democracy –........

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