Elections in our country are often described as the largest democratic exercise in human history, and the numbers alone justify that claim. Nearly a billion citizens are eligible to vote, supported by millions of polling staff and security personnel spread across every corner of the country. The logistical scale is staggering: ballots and electronic voting machines must reach remote villages, mountain hamlets, and island communities, ensuring that no citizen is denied the right to participate.
More than a million polling booths are set up, each requiring staff, security, and logistical support. In some regions, polling officials trek through forests or sail across rivers to ensure that even the smallest hamlet is included. Citizens themselves show remarkable commitment: elderly voters being carried to booths, villagers walking miles in the heat to cast their ballot. Participation is not the problem; it is the integrity of the process that is under strain. Campaign financing operates under a complex legal framework, but loopholes abound. The Representation of the People Act sets expenditure limits for candidates ~ Rs 95 lakh for Lok Sabha contests in larger states and Rs 40 lakh in smaller ones ~ yet political parties face no such restrictions.
This imbalance allows parties to spend hundreds of crores on rallies, advertising, logistics, and digital campaigns, drowning out smaller voices and independent candidates. Campaigns now resemble corporate marketing exercises, with helicopters ferrying leaders across constituencies, massive stages erected for rallies, and advertising blitzes dominating television and social media. For a candidate bound by expenditure limits, the contest is unequal from the start.
The introduction of electoral bonds in 2018 was intended to formalise donations, but it has instead enabled anonymous contributions of unlimited sums. Reports suggest that thousands of crores have flowed through this route, with the public left guessing about the source. Transparency, which is the lifeblood of electoral integrity, has been sacrificed at the altar of expediency. Critics argue that anonymity shields corporate donors and allows ruling parties to benefit disproportionately, while citizens are left in the dark about who funds whom. The Supreme Court has debated the issue, but reforms remain stalled. In effect, the system has created a parallel economy of influence, where money speaks louder than manifestos. The criminalisation of politics compounds this imbalance.
According to the Association for Democratic Reforms, more than 40 per cent of Members of Parliament face criminal cases, and nearly one in four face serious charges including murder, kidnapping, and crimes against women. Trials drag on for decades, allowing accused legislators to continue contesting elections and shaping laws. The maxim that one is innocent until proven guilty is stretched to absurdity when trials never conclude, and the accused continue to wield power unchecked.
The result is a system where lawbreakers thrive as lawmakers, and the credibility of democracy itself is weakened. Citizens are left to wonder whether the ballot is truly a tool of reform or merely a mechanism that perpetuates entrenched interests. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls illustrates another weakness in the system. Intended to update and cleanse voter lists, the exercise often becomes controversial. Citizens complain of names being arbitrarily deleted, genuine voters being asked to repeatedly prove their identity, and entire groups ~ especially migrants and the poor-facing exclusion.
When revision itself becomes inconsistent or politicised, trust in the process erodes. Electoral integrity cannot be sustained by half measures; it requires a system where inclusion is the norm and exclusion is the exception, and where the burden of proof does not fall unfairly on the citizen. Another distortion arises from India’s vast floating population of migratory workers and gig labourers. Lakhs of citizens move between cities for employment, often excluded from voter lists or unable to return home to vote. In urban centres, turnout is depressed because workers cannot afford to travel back to their native constituencies. This exclusion weakens representation and creates a silent disenfranchisement.
A democracy that prides itself on scale must also ensure that mobility does not translate into invisibility. Mechanisms such as absentee ballots, postal voting, or portable voter registration could address this gap, but progress has been slow. Equally troubling is the lack of civic education. Many citizens are unaware of their rights or disengaged from the process. Schools rarely embed civic education in curricula, leaving young voters ill-prepared to understand the stakes of participation. Without awareness, voters become vulnerable to misinformation, inducements, or apathy.
Contrast this with democracies where civic education is a structured part of schooling, instilling respect for institutions and responsibility in participation. In India, the absence of such education leaves a vacuum that money and patronage readily fill. The freebie culture further distorts voter choice. Promises of cash transfers, subsidies, or gifts shift focus from policy to patronage. Parties compete to outbid one another with short-term inducements, while long-term governance issues are neglected.
Freebies may provide immediate relief, but they erode the principle that elections should be contests of ideas and vision. Democracies elsewhere regulate or ban such practices, recognising that inducements undermine free choice. India’s tolerance of this culture reflects a failure to distinguish between welfare and patronage, between policy and populism. Underlying all these distortions is a deeper fear: in any democracy, the State must avoid being judgmental in selecting voters. It is the function of the State to keep a check on infiltrators, but when it fails, citizens should not be pushed to repeatedly prove their identity.
The burden of proof must not fall unfairly on the voter. When citizens are harassed or excluded under the guise of verification, the very fabric of democracy is torn. The right to vote is not a privilege to be granted conditionally; it is a fundamental entitlement. A democracy that mistrusts its citizens risks losing their trust in return. Comparative experience offers lessons. In the United Kingdom, donations above modest thresholds must be disclosed, and corporate contributions are tightly regulated. Germany imposes strict caps on campaign spending, while Scandinavian countries experiment with public funding of elections to level the playing field.
The United States, despite its own challenges, enforces disclosure of donations above $200 and subjects campaigns to oversight by the Federal Election Commission. Canada requires strict disclosure of donations and limits corporate and union contributions, ensuring campaigns rely more on individual citizens. Australia enforces compulsory voting, which raises turnout but also demands strong oversight of campaign finance to prevent undue influence. South Korea has experimented with real-time disclosure of donations during campaigns, giving voters immediate transparency. Brazil moved toward banning corporate donations altogether after corruption scandals, showing how reform can be triggered by crisis. These examples demonstrate that democracies across the world grapple with similar challenges, but many have chosen to confront them head-on rather than allow distortions to fester. The imbalance can be corrected, but only with systemic reform.
Mandating full disclosure of funding sources, lowering donation caps, strengthening Election Commission oversight, and disqualifying candidates facing framed charges are essential steps. Technology can be leveraged for real time expenditure tracking, while a statutory framework for state funding of elections could level the field. Mechanisms to include migratory workers, embed civic education, and regulate freebies must be part of the reform package. Public trust in democracy depends not only on the right to vote but on the assurance that votes are not drowned out by money or distorted by inducements.
India’s democracy thrives on participation, but participation alone is not enough. The spectacle of high turnout cannot mask the distortions created by unchecked money power, criminalisation, exclusion, and patronage. When money decides elections, democracy becomes a transaction, not a trust. Unless reforms that have long been proposed are finally implemented, electoral integrity will remain hostage to financial clout, and the mandate of the people will risk being subsumed by the power of money.
The challenge is not the absence of reform proposals, but their consistent failure to be implemented. The time has come for those proposals to move from paper to practice, for only then can India’s democracy claim to be both the largest and the fairest in the world. As Brad Schneider aptly said, “The very foundation of our democracy depends on the integrity of our elections.” Election integrity is not a luxury ~ it is the lifeline of democracy.
(The writer is a retired Air Commodore, VSM, of the Indian Air Force)