ELECTIONS in Pakistan have always enjoyed dubious legitimacy at best, either due to their authoritarian provenance or because of widespread allegations regarding the partisan nature of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the country’s caretaker governments. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which was hammered out in 2012 following a rare moment of consensus amongst the major political parties, aimed to rectify many of the criticisms levelled against the ECP by reformulating the procedure through which it, and caretaker governments, would be constituted. Events since then have clearly shown that these changes were inadequate and that, no matter what might be said or done, the endemic institutional anaemia and corruption that plague Pakistan will always militate against a change to the status quo.

While it is tempting to agree with this logic, the story told by S.Y. Quraishi in An Undocumented Wonder: The Making of the Great Indian Election is one that should provide considerable food for thought for all who are interested in strengthening Pakistan’s democracy. Indeed, for all their differences, not least of all in their post-independence political trajectories, India and Pakistan share some similar challenges when it comes to conducting elections: both have large and diverse populations spread over all kinds of terrain, both have a form of democratic politics dominated by clientelism, money, and criminality, and both have state apparatuses whose power and authority are thoroughly compromised at the local level. Yet, despite all of this, India is able to hold credible, free and fair elections whose results are accepted by all the mainstream players, while Pakistan is not.

There are many possible explanations for this difference — the repeated interference of the Pakistani military in the electoral process and the entrenchment of democratic norms in India come to mind — but it would be fair to say that the manner in which the Election Commission of India (ECI) differs from its Pakistani counterpart provides a powerful institutional cause for the differing quality of electoral management, and democratic consolidation, in the two countries.

Quraishi is a former chief election commissioner of India, and at the very outset, An Undocumented Wonder lays the scale of the challenge faced by the ECI every five years; with an electorate currently comprised of 814 million voters who cast their ballots over a month in a nine-phase poll, it is the ECI that bears the sole responsibility for ensuring all citizens are able to participate in the elections, putting in place the logistics required for carrying out such a massive exercise, and regulating competition between parties and politicians with a view towards providing as free and fair a battleground as possible.

Throughout the book’s 13 chapters, each of which touches on a different theme relating to India’s elections, ranging from the history of the ECI, its efforts to enfranchise disadvantaged communities, the role of technology and the media, and ongoing issues and problems, An Undocumented Wonder makes ample use of both anecdotal and documentary evidence to illustrate the lengths to which the ECI has gone in its efforts to make elections work.

Thus, we are told about how an entire polling booth, complete with six staff members and an electronic voting machine, was set up on an estate to ensure that the single person living there would be able to cast his vote on election day. We are informed that the ECI routinely engages in all manner of outreach in attempts to promote voter awareness and education, implementing projects to get young people interested in elections while also placing a special emphasis on getting women to come out and exercise their democratic rights (with the provision of female polling officers and faster-moving female queues in polling booths being a part of this process). We are also provided with pages and pages of documentation detailing the sometimes extraordinary and often indefatigable attempts by the ECI to investigate and prosecute individuals accused of violating electoral law.

The overwhelming sense one gets while going through An Undocumented Wonder is that the ECI and the election commissioners that head it are driven by a strong sense of purpose and a deep commitment to the cause of democracy in India. Near the beginning of the book, Quraishi devotes considerable space to outlining how the ECI’s mission and, indeed, its raison d’être is to defend and expand the democratic values enshrined in the Indian constitution. While this might be true, and Quraishi’s account of the conduct of his colleagues and predecessors certainly lends credence to the idea that the ECI possesses a strong democratic ethos, it would be a mistake to underestimate the part played by the ECI’s institutional moorings in allowing it to play the substantive role that it does in India’s elections.

It is here that the differences with Pakistan become most clear. All of the ECI’s activities and actions, from the provision of voting facilities in some of the most remote parts of the country, to the taking to task of obstreperous politicians, are made possible by the constitutional safeguards it enjoys that guarantee its autonomy, and the evolution of a system that essentially ensures that the chief election commissioner becomes the de facto prime minister of India during elections. Election commissioners in India are incredibly difficult to remove once appointed, and are granted powers that ensure they are able to resist the blandishments and attacks of politicians, parliaments, and courts that might seek to compromise the work that they do.

Furthermore, the manner in which the ECI is funded, coupled with its right to commandeer the services of the entire Indian government machinery, means that the institution is able to take control of the massive Indian state and bend it to its will, deploying its entire capacity to deliver credible elections. Enjoying the power to transfer and post state functionaries at will, the ECI possesses the means through which to eliminate the political bias that inevitably creeps in when local politicians get to know their counterparts in the government, and to effectively respond to complaints about actual, or potential, misconduct on the part of its staff. Even the police fall under the power of the ECI, transforming overnight into an impartial force that can be trusted to oversee the electoral process in sensitive polling areas.

Contrast the undeniable metamorphosis of the often inefficient and corrupt Indian state with the situation in Pakistan where, even after the passage of the 20th Amendment, the chief election commissioner and his colleagues continue to serve fixed terms, and are entirely reliant on the services of bureaucrats and state functionaries who remain beholden to the federal and provincial governments, as well as locally influential politicians, for transfers, promotions, and other forms of state patronage.

Indeed, the allegations of ‘pre-poll’ rigging that crop up every time votes are cast in Pakistan, and the accusations of partisan polling staff aiding one candidate or the other, are rooted in a recognition of how the people charged with administering elections in this country are ultimately more accountable to, and influenced by, semi-permanent political patrons rather than a largely toothless ECP that lacks the power and the capacity to exercise an effective check on the activities of its staff. When seeking impartial oversight of the polling process, parties and politicians in Pakistan invariably ask for the army to step in, recognising that civilian organisations, such as the police, cannot be trusted to overcome their political allegiances and biases.

It is clear that the success of the ECI largely stems from the strong constitutional and institutional powers that it commands. However, as the book shows, the ECI is also constantly involved in updating and improving its abilities. The successful deployment of electronic voting machines and the positive feedback received from its numerous voter education programmes are just two examples of how the ECI continues to search for and find ways in which to improve the electoral process. The improvement of its activities on the ground has been matched by a slow but steady process of legislative reform; working closely with the courts and legislature, the ECI has often been at the forefront of attempts to refine its own workings, and to improve the electoral process more generally by closing loopholes in electoral law.

Here, the ECI has had more of a mixed record. As Quraishi himself readily and repeatedly admits, democracy in India is constantly threatened by the expanding influence of “money power”. Politics in India remains dominated by patron-client linkages, rent-seeking, and corruption, with the line between criminality and legitimate political involvement becoming increasingly blurred in recent years. At one level, this is a problem that lies beyond the ECI’s jurisdiction; after all, the ECI only comes to power for one month every five years, and can hardly be expected to remedy the broader institutional shortcomings of the Indian state. Furthermore, the disproportionate and distorting effect of money on democracy is hardly unique to India, as demonstrated by the eye-watering sums currently being spent on elections by a small cabal of corporations and moneyed elites in the United States.

Nonetheless, Quraishi provides detailed accounts of the efforts made by the ECI to regulate and control expenditure during India’s elections, both by imposing rules about how much money can be spent and where, and by employing a variety of different mechanisms through which to monitor and document the money trails of different parties and candidates. It is a battle that has been far from won in India, but Quraishi’s account makes it clear that the ECI remains alive to the dangers posed by money to India’s democracy.

An Undocumented Wonder is a comprehensive yet accessible read, and is quite possibly the single most exhaustive account of the history and activities of the ECI. Quraishi’s meticulous attention to detail is also, however, one of the book’s few shortcomings; while it makes for fascinating reading if one happens to be interested in psephology, it is unlikely to be particularly engaging for the layperson. Similarly, while the book painstakingly documents the minutiae of the Indian electoral process, it often does so at the expense of a more analytical account of the problems and issues faced by contemporary democracies. Thus, while it does a good job of identifying the corrosive effect money has on democratic politics, it does a less convincing job of defending the first-past-the-post electoral system. This, however, is a relatively small issue given that the main aim of the book, namely recounting and explaining the success of the ECI, is achieved with unqualified success.

On talk shows and at rallies, politicians in Pakistan have often referred to the ECI as a model the ECP could potentially follow in order to restore legitimacy to electoral politics in this country. While this is sound advice, one suspects that many who advocate this course of action have a limited understanding of the exact process through which such a fundamental transformation could be undertaken on this side of the border. Restoring credibility to the ECP will require tremendous political will, and a more nuanced understanding of the policies and procedures through which an election commission can be sufficiently empowered to undertake its duties effectively. Those who are interested in taking this process forward would do well to go through An Undocumented Wonder and its peerless account of how elections are successfully administered in the world’s largest democracy.

An Undocumented Wonder: The Making of the Great Indian Election

(POLITICS)

By S.Y. Quraishi

Rupa Publications, India

ISBN 978-8129131065

416pp.