Manufacturing Mandates: State Power, Electoral Institutions, and the Crisis of Choice in India
Abstract
Indian elections continue to be celebrated as a global democratic achievement, marked by vast scale, high voter turnout, and procedural regularity. Yet, beneath this surface lies a structural transformation that has steadily narrowed the range of meaningful political choice available to citizens. This paper argues that contemporary Indian elections increasingly resemble a Hobson’s choice—a situation where formal choice exists without substantive alternatives. Tracing the evolution of electoral democracy in independent India, the paper examines the growing asymmetry of political finance, the erosion of institutional autonomy of the Election Commission of India, the selective deployment of investigative agencies, media capture, voter list manipulation, and the systematic displacement of governance issues by identity-based polarisation. The analysis situates these developments within a broader shift from participatory democracy to plebiscitary legitimation, where elections function less as mechanisms of accountability and more as rituals of consent. While Indian democracy is not defunct, the paper contends that its electoral core is being hollowed out, posing urgent questions about democratic agency, institutional integrity, and political imagination.
1. Introduction: Democracy Beyond Procedure
Elections in India are frequently invoked as definitive proof of democratic vitality. The logistical feat of conducting polls for nearly a billion citizens, often in difficult terrain and adverse conditions, is rightly acknowledged as remarkable. The Election Commission of India (ECI) proudly reiterates its constitutional mandate to conduct “free and fair” elections, and international observers routinely commend India’s electoral management.
However, democracy cannot be reduced to procedural success alone. As scholars of democratic theory have long argued, elections are meaningful only insofar as they provide citizens with genuine alternatives, enable informed choice, and allow for the peaceful contestation of power (Dahl 1971; Schumpeter 1942). When electoral competition becomes structurally skewed, institutionally compromised, and ideologically constricted, the act of voting risks degenerating into an exercise of formal consent rather than substantive agency.
This paper argues that contemporary Indian elections increasingly embody what may be described as a Hobson’s choice: voters are offered the right to choose, but from a menu so constrained that refusal becomes impractical and alternatives largely illusory.
2. Hobson’s Choice as a Democratic Metaphor
The term Hobson’s choice originates from 17th-century England, named after Thomas Hobson, a Cambridge stable owner who required customers to take the horse nearest the door or none at all. The phrase denotes not the absence of choice, but the compulsion to accept what is offered.
Applied to electoral democracy, Hobson’s choice captures a condition where formal electoral competition persists, but substantive political alternatives are systematically foreclosed. Unlike authoritarian systems where voting is openly meaningless, Hobson’s choice operates through democratic forms while hollowing out democratic content. This makes it particularly insidious, as it preserves the appearance of legitimacy even as political agency erodes.
3. Electoral Democracy in Early Independent India
In the first decades after Independence, Indian elections were deeply imperfect but substantively competitive. The Congress Party’s dominance coexisted with ideological opposition from socialist, communist, regional, and right-wing formations. Electoral contests were embedded in mass movements—trade unions, peasant struggles, student politics, and social reform campaigns.
Crucially, institutions maintained relative autonomy. The ECI, under figures such as Sukumar Sen and T.N. Seshan, established credibility through enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct. The judiciary retained a measure of independence, and the press functioned as a site of critique rather than amplification of executive power.
Even during the Emergency (1975–77), the eventual restoration of electoral competition reaffirmed the centrality of popular consent. The post-Emergency period strengthened the belief that elections, despite distortions, could correct authoritarian drift.
4. The Escalating Cost of Elections and the Exclusion of the Ordinary Citizen
One of the most profound transformations of Indian elections has been their escalating cost. Campaign expenditures today bear little resemblance to statutory limits prescribed by the ECI. In many parliamentary constituencies, actual spending runs into hundreds of crores, facilitated through unaccounted cash, paid news, digital advertising, and surrogate campaigning.
This financialisation of elections has two major consequences. First, it excludes individuals with integrity, political will, and grassroots credibility who lack access to large financial networks. Second, it transforms political parties into vehicles for capital accumulation, dependent on corporate patronage and rent-seeking arrangements.
As a result, elections are no longer arenas of mass participation but elite competitions conducted over the heads of citizens. The right to vote remains universal, but the right to contest meaningfully is effectively restricted.
5. Electoral Bonds and the Institutionalisation of Financial Asymmetry
The Electoral Bond Scheme (2018–2024) marked a decisive shift in political finance. By enabling anonymous donations through banking channels, the scheme eliminated transparency while disproportionately benefiting the ruling party. Data revealed after judicial intervention showed that over 80 per cent of the total funds raised accrued to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Supreme Court’s decision striking down the scheme as unconstitutional affirmed that political funding secrecy violates the voter’s right to information. However, the material consequences of the scheme persist. The accumulated financial advantage continues to shape electoral outcomes, enabling omnipresent campaigning and organisational dominance.
The abolition of electoral bonds has not dismantled the structural inequality they entrenched. Instead, it has revealed how deeply elections have become dependent on asymmetrical financial power.
6. The Election Commission of India: From Autonomy to Alignment
Perhaps the most troubling development is the perceived erosion of the ECI’s independence. Once regarded as a constitutional sentinel, the Commission increasingly appears reluctant to act against ruling party violations.
Delays in enforcing the Model Code of Conduct, silence on incendiary campaign rhetoric, selective application of rules, and opaque decision-making have raised serious concerns. Submissions by Opposition parties and civil society organisations frequently receive no reasoned response.
The restructuring of the appointment process for Election Commissioners—removing the Chief Justice of India from the selection committee—has further consolidated executive influence. The grant of immunity for acts performed by the Commission has weakened accountability. Together, these changes have transformed the ECI from an autonomous referee into a contested institutional actor.
7. Investigative Agencies and the Politics of Coercion
The selective deployment of investigative agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, and Income Tax Department has become a defining feature of contemporary electoral politics. Opposition leaders face raids, arrests, and prolonged legal proceedings, often timed around elections.
The pattern suggests not an impartial anti-corruption drive but a strategy of political intimidation. Defections are frequently accompanied by the suspension or dilution of investigations, reinforcing the perception of coercion. Elections under such conditions cease to be contests of ideas and become tests of endurance.
8. Media Capture and the Manufacture of Consent
The mainstream media’s transformation has further narrowed democratic choice. Large sections of television news function as extensions of ruling party messaging, marginalising dissent and amplifying polarising narratives.
Structural issues—unemployment, inflation, agrarian distress, health and education failures—receive limited sustained coverage. Instead, identity-based spectacles dominate airtime. Fake narratives are constructed and disseminated through a synchronised ecosystem involving media houses, social media platforms, and cultural production, including cinema.
This environment deprives voters of the information necessary for informed choice, replacing deliberation with affect and fear.
9. Identity Polarisation and the Displacement of Governance
Elections increasingly revolve around caste arithmetic, religious mobilisation, and pseudo-nationalism rather than policy performance. Muslims, in particular, have been constructed as permanent outsiders, with their places of worship, festivals, and cultural practices routinely politicised.
Incidents targeting churches, mosques, and minority communities—often involving organisations aligned with the ruling ideology—are rarely condemned with institutional seriousness. Parliamentary debates and election campaigns legitimise suspicion and hostility, normalising exclusion.
As a result, governance failures recede from electoral discourse, replaced by symbolic battles that consolidate power without addressing material deprivation.
10. Voter List Manipulation and Administrative Disenfranchisement
Allegations of voter list manipulation—mass deletions, selective additions, and the use of Special Intensive Revision (SIR)—have raised concerns about administrative disenfranchisement. Instances reported from Bihar, Karnataka, Haryana, and other states suggest that errors disproportionately affect migrants, minorities, and the poor.
The replication of these practices in states approaching elections indicates a systematic rather than accidental pattern. When electoral participation itself becomes contingent and precarious, the universality of the franchise is undermined.
11. Elections as Ritual: Democracy Without Choice
None of these developments imply that Indian democracy has ceased to exist. Elections continue to be held, governments change, and opposition voices persist. However, elections increasingly function as rituals that legitimise power without genuinely contesting it.
Citizens participate primarily as voters, not as active agents shaping political agendas. Democratic engagement is compressed into a single act, while institutional channels for accountability weaken.
This transformation aligns with what scholars describe as plebiscitary democracy, where periodic mass endorsement substitutes for sustained participation (Urbinati 2014).
12. Conclusion: Reclaiming Democratic Possibility
Reclaiming democracy requires more than electoral reform, though transparency in political funding, institutional autonomy, and media accountability are essential. It also demands a renewed political imagination—one that rebuilds grassroots leadership, foregrounds material issues, and resists the reduction of politics to identity spectacle.
Democracy thrives on possibility. When elections offer only a Hobson’s choice, democratic legitimacy erodes not through overt repression but through quiet consent. The challenge before India is not merely to preserve elections, but to restore their meaning.
References
1. Dahl, R. (1971): Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, Yale University Press.
2. Schumpeter, J. (1942): Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper & Brothers.
3. Supreme Court of India (2024): Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India.
4. Vaishnav, M. (2017): When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics, Yale University Press.
5. Chhibber, P. and Verma, R. (2018): Ideology and Identity, Oxford University Press.
6. Jenkins, R. (2019): “Democratic Backsliding in India,” Journal of Democracy.
7. Urbinati, N. (2014): Democracy Disfigured, Harvard University Press.
8. Election Commission of India: Various reports and notifications.
9. Association for Democratic Reforms: Reports on political finance and electoral transparency.
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