On August 10, 1928, Pandit Motilal Nehru (1861-1931) shot off a letter to Dr MA Ansari, President, All Parties Conference, enclosing a report containing the principles of the future Constitution of India. The All Parties Conference (1928) was a platform for political parties who had collectively boycotted the Simon Commission. The Conference, in its Bombay Session on May 19, 1928, appointed a committee chaired by Pt. Motilal Nehru to consider and determine the principles of the Constitution of India. Its other members were Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Sir Ali Imam, GR Pradhan, Shuaib Qureshi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Madharao Aney, MR Jayakar, NM Joshi, and Sardar Mangal Singh.
The report is memorable for enunciating adult suffrage in elections to Parliament. A few of its recommendations read as below-
8. The Senate shall consist of 200 members to be elected by Provincial Councils, a specific number of seats being allotted to each province on the basis of population, subject to a minimum. The election shall be held by the method of representation with the single transferrable vote (The Hare System).
9. The House of Representatives shall consist of 500 members to be elected by constituencies determined by law. Every person of either sex who had attained the age of 21, and is not disqualified by law shall be entitled to vote.
Provided that Parliament shall have the power to increase the number of members from time to time if necessary.
10. (I) Every House of Representatives shall continue for five years from its first meeting and every Senate shall continue for seven years.
(All Parties Conference: Report of the Committee appointed by the Conference to determine the principles of Constitution for India, Third Edition, 1928, P.104)
How farsighted! The Parliamentary bi-cameralism adopted by the Constitution of India (1949) appears to have taken a leaf out of the Nehru Report (1928). However, let us revert to the subject of adult suffrage/universal adult franchise. It might be remembered that when the British introduced the system of direct elections to legislatures under the Government of India Act 1919, the franchise size was extremely limited. Only those with certain property, income, or (in some provinces) education qualifications were conceded the right to vote. The percentage of the population enfranchised varied from 1.1 per cent in Bihar and Orissa (a province between 1911 and 1937), to an unimpressive 3.9 per cent in Bombay (Simon Commission Report, Vol-1, P.197/Para. 210).
It was patently a 19th-century idea that only those who had certain material possessions like property and income could be recognised as stakeholders in democracy and thus allowed voting rights. Adult suffrage, though it might have a history dating back to the Second Republic in France (1848), was actually made popular by the newly independent nations of Europe after World War I. Britain extended universal suffrage to all males in 1918, whereas women had to wait until 1928.
It is interesting to note that the Nehru Report appeared in the very same year. The report identifies the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (estd.1920) as the inspiration behind its adult suffrage- Universal adult suffrage is at present being successfully worked on a small scale in elections to the Shromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (Central Sikh Shrines Committee), which are held all over the Punjab. Its introduction on a larger scale only means a multiplication of the machinery employed. We do not see why such multiplication with all the trouble and expense it involves should be considered unreasonable when it is necessary for the purpose of laying the foundation upon which responsible government rests. (Ibid, P.93)
The Nehru Report (1928) is not in the news. And that is exactly the news! The report was a milestone in the development of constitutional thought in India. Pt. Motilal Nehru was nominated the President at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928. Though the report, adopted at the Calcutta Congress, was junked within a year when his son Jawaharlal Nehru became the President at the Lahore session (1929), no discussion on the growth of adult suffrage in India is possible without mentioning the Nehru Report (1928). However, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal proceeded to do exactly that by omitting the name of Pt. Motilal Nehru and conferring the entire credit of conceiving and implementing adult suffrage in India to Dr BR Ambedkar.
Is it because mentioning a Nehru (including Pt. Motilal Nehru for whom the founder of Jana Sangh Dr Syamaprasad Mookerjee had profound reverence) is a taboo in this government, and eulogising Dr Ambedkar supposedly brings a rich electoral dividend?
The MoS, Law and Justice (independent charge) was addressing the main event of National Voters’ Day (NVD) on January 25 at New Delhi’s Manekshaw Centre Auditorium. President Droupadi Murmu was present as the Chief Guest. The MoS, Law and Justice, first cited Dr Ambedkar’s evidence before the Southborough Committee as an example of the latter’s support to adult suffrage. Ongoing through Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writing and Speeches Vol-1 (compiled by Vasant Moon, 1979), I found that Dr Ambedkar did give evidence before the Southborough Committee on Franchise (set up under the Montagu-Chelmsford Reform Scheme) on January 27, 1919. He also presented a long-written statement in addition to oral testimony (P.247-278). However, his evidence was about securing a wide enough franchise for the Depressed Classes, a term Ambedkar used for those considered untouchable in the Hindu society in those days. Since he was concerned only about the franchise of Depressed Classes, he did not deal with the question of adult suffrage, being extraneous to the Montagu-Chelmsford Reform Scheme.
The MoS, Law and Justice later referred to Ambedkar pitching for adult suffrage at the Round Table Conference (1930). Here one must concede that Ambedkar, along with NM Joshi, Shiva Rao, and Rao Bahadur Srinivasan, favoured adult franchise in the Sub Committee No. VI (Franchise) at First Round Table Conference (Indian Round Table Conference, 1930-31 Proceedings, P.368). However, at the Round Table Conference, it was NM Joshi who pitched for universal adult franchise most vocally. Dr Ambedkar’s main speech (P.123 -129) pertained to the protection of the political rights of the Depressed Classes under Swaraj or self-government in India.
“We know that political power is passing from the British in the hands of those who wield such tremendous economic, social, and religious sway over our existence. We are willing that it may happen, though the idea of Swaraj recalls to the mind of many of us the tyrannies, oppressions and injustices practised upon us in the past and fear of their recurrence under Swaraj. We are prepared to take that inevitable risk of the situation in the hope that we are installed, in adequate proportions, as political sovereigns of the country along with our fellow countrymen” (P.126).
I further went through the Report of the Indian Franchise Committee Vol-I (1932). The Committee was set up in pursuance of the Round Table Conference. Chaired by the Marquess of Lothian, Dr Ambedkar was one of the members of the Committee. He submitted a note on the Depressed Classes (P.202-211). The Lothian Committee concluded that immediate extension of adult suffrage was impractical, a position accepted by the Third Round Table Conference.
II
Is it plausible that the Indian National Congress, the mainstream political organisation of the day, did not consider adult suffrage? The demand for adult suffrage formed part of Jawaharlal Nehru’s resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy, passed at the Karachi Congress (March 1931), presided over by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (B. N. Pandey Ed, A Centenary History of the Indian National Congress Vol-II: 1919-1935, P.249).
Further, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in a resolution in July 1931 demanded the franchise should be extended to all adult men and women, as also joint electorates would form the basis of representation in the future Constitution of India. This resolution was embodied in a memorandum dated October 28, 1931, and was circulated by Gandhi to the members of the Second Round Table Conference, informs Anil Chandra Banerjee (Indian Constitutional Documents 1757-1945, Vol-III. 248-249).
III
There is no doubt that Ambedkar’s priority, defending the political rights of Depressed Classes, was no less important. It might also be true that he favoured adult suffrage. However, to present him as the pioneer and sole crusader of adult suffrage in India in exclusion of others would be inappropriate. Adult suffrage could count many other advocates including Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru and MN Ray apart from Pt. Motilal Nehru.
Adult suffrage was first conceded by the British to Indians, of all places, in Kenya, under the Legislative Council Ordinance, 1919. Ahmed Jamal, Chairman of the Reception Committee, while welcoming the delegates (which included Sarojini Naidu) at the East Africa Indian Congress at Mombasa on January 19, 1924, was furious. He rated the adult suffrage was only a ruse to perpetuate discriminatory policies against the Indian community. “To add insult to humiliation and divide our own camp,” Ahmed Jamal observed, “the Government passed and published very recently the rules of the Legislative Council Ordinance wherein, to deluge, and misguide the Indian community, adult suffrage has been given but I must boldly say to those concerned that the Government has been misdirected and the Indian community of Kenya is determined not to bear the insult offered to them in that notorious White Paper, and I am right in saying that until such time as the said policy is revised in justification of the Indian claims, the Indian community will not take part in the Legislatures of this country” (The Indian Quarterly Register, Jan-March, 1924 P.317).
Mahatma Gandhi, who piloted the Congress’ boycott of the first elections in 1920, but later made up with the pro-election Swaraj Party in 1924, comes across as a supporter of adult suffrage in 1929. On February 3, 1929, Gandhi addressed the Karachi municipality, which had recently extended voting rights to every person who paid a monthly rent of two rupees, thus covering one-third of the entire population of the city. Gandhi, as his biographer D.G. Tendulkar informs, in his speech expressed the hope that in not so distant future, the money-basis franchise would be altogether replaced by adult suffrage giving the right to vote to every resident who possessed a sound mind (Mahatma Vol-II, P.451).
Municipal corporations appear to have led the implementation of adult suffrage in India after the Congress formed governments in eight provinces as a result of the 1937 elections. While addressing the Bombay Corporation on May 10, 1938, Subhas Chandra Bose complimented them for adopting adult franchise and doing away with the practice of nomination completely. “Once again I will say,” stated Bose, “that this has significance not only for the city of Bombay but for the whole of India and probably for other countries circumstanced like India. I think we should offer our congratulations to the present Government of Bombay for this change. We all wish that other cities, particularly the premier cities of India, would take a leaf out of Bombay’s history in this respect, introduce adult franchise and abolish the system of nominations” (Crossroads: being works of Subhas Chandra Bose 1938-1940, P.33).
It might be remembered that Subhas Chandra Bose was one of the signatories of the Nehru Report (1928).
IV
Whereas the Government of India Act, 1935 expanded the franchise size to around 11 per cent of the population, with special emphasis on women’s enfranchisement, the Congress found it unsatisfactory. At the Faizpur (Maharashtra) Congress session held on December 27-28, 1936, an election manifesto was adopted by the Congress. It was here that Jawaharlal Nehru underscored the demand for adult suffrage as the cornerstone of the Congress’ policy (A Centenary History of the Indian National Congress Vol-III: 1935-1947, P.136).
After the Congress ministries took office in eight provinces after the 1937 elections, their first task was to pass a resolution in their respective legislatures against the Government of India Act, 1935 that had ironically brought them into power. The common resolution went like this-
This Assembly is of the opinion that the Government of India Act, 1935 in no way represents the will of the nation and is wholly unsatisfactory, as it has been designed to perpetuate the subjection of the people of India. The Assembly demands that this should be repealed and replaced by a constitution for a free India framed by a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of adult franchise which allows the people full scope for development according to their needs and desire (Ibid, P.157).
The All-India Congress Committee in its Calcutta meeting in October 1937 adopted a resolution on Fundamental Rights in free India. One of its features was that the franchise would be based on universal adult suffrage. It finds a mention in the presidential speech of Subhas Chandra Bose at Haripura Congress in February 1938 (Crossroads, P.9).
V
The last general elections in colonial India were held in the cold season of 1945-46. The electorate’s size was around 14 per cent of the adult population. Whereas these elections did not directly lead to the formation of the Constituent Assembly, a middle ground was proposed by Governor General Lord Wavell on May 16, 1946. He observed that whereas elections based on adult suffrage were ideal, any attempt to introduce the same at that stage would lead to a corresponding delay in the formulation of the Constitution for free India. The alternative was to utilise the recently elected Provincial Legislative Assemblies as electing bodies to elect a Constituent Assembly by using a formula that satisfactorily represents the population of that province proportionately.
It was by that formula, of proportional representation according to population size, that the Constituent Assembly was elected. It goes to the credit of the Constituent Assembly to make adult suffrage the basis of the elections in India as enshrined in Article 326 of the Constitution. However, is the entire credit due to Dr Ambedkar here? Such a proposition would be doubtful.
The Constituent Assembly had constituted several committees to study various aspects of constitution-making. Browsing through them reveals that adult suffrage for electing the federal and provincial legislature appears in the reports of Report of the Union Constitution Committee chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru that submitted its report on July 21, 1947, and in the Report of the Provincial Constitution Committee chaired by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel that submitted its report on July 15, 1947. Both these reports are available in the Reports of the Committees (First Series), 1947 published under the aegis of the Constituent Assembly by the Government of India in 1948.
India espousing democracy, when there were barely a dozen of them left standing in the world after World War II, was a momentous decision. However, in the late 1940s, adult suffrage had ceased to be a novel feature. No country securing independence in that period could have denied that privilege to its people, least of all India, whose freedom struggle was waged in the name of all people regardless of gender, educational, economic, religious or social status. A good example would be Israel, which gained its independence in May 1948 and held its first general elections in February 1949 based on adult suffrage. Israel was the first country in the world to extend voting rights to Arab women before they enjoyed the same rights in any Arab country.
Actually, (adult) universal suffrage by secret ballot was laid down by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) dated November 29, 1947, under Sections 5 and 10 (a) both for Jewish and Arab portions of Palestine. It was another thing that the Arabs chose to disregard the resolution and invaded the newly independent Israel, but later found the UN as their favourite assembly to press forward their demands against Israel.
Thus adult suffrage has an interesting history in India, as much as elsewhere in the world. It should not be reduced to one person for electoral considerations. Dr Ambedkar, a great researcher with a capacious mind, himself would not have disapproved of such a reductionist view.
The writer is author of the book “The Microphone Men: How Orators Created a Modern India” (2019) and an independent researcher based in New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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