Last month’s announcement by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the crucial figure of first time youth voters registration has raised several questions about youth’s participation in the democratic process of India. As compared to 2019 Union elections where the new youth voter registered were 45 million, this time around it’s only 18 million, less than 40% of eligible new voters as published by ECI (for 18-19 years youth).
This year’s figure seems to be lower than 2014 Union elections when 24 million new youth voters were registered. As we know youth voters have played a crucial role since the past few decades as the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18 years in 1989 through the 61st amendment to the Constitution, that led to the addition of 50 million youth voters. Since then youth voters have actively participated in the electoral process, especially in the last 2 elections where their turnout has been impressively high.
Not just the youth voter turnout increased substantially in last 10 years (67-68% voter turnout) but their voting preference had a crucial impact in BJP’s victory (34% and 41% youth voted for BJP in 2014 and 2019 respectively, in comparison to its overall vote share of 31% and 37% in 2014 and 2019). This raises several questions about why the trend of growing numbers of young voters has dropped suddenly this time in comparison to the past few elections and what will be its implications on the election results.
Of course, one can highlight that unlike previous Union elections, where there was a strong campaign, anti-corruption in 2014 and national security in 2019, there seems to be no central issue galvanizing voters this time. Or there is a general demotivation among people to come out and vote as observed across the globe.
This trend is also visible in the lower voter turnout in the 5 phases of the election completed till now. So one can extrapolate that youth voters like others are not as interested in making their vote count. However, beyond the immediate cause, there are certain systemic issues that are affecting not only the youth voter turnout but political participation of youth in general. In this series of articles, I am going to analyze these systemic issues in detail and discuss what can be done to improve youth participation in the democratic processes of India.
Initiating youth into the country’s electoral process
Right from the freedom movement of India, youth have played a central role in articulating the demands of freedom and equality. Jhalkari Bai, Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Ashfaqulla Khan are just few names that come to our mind when we think of young freedom fighters. Since independence, young people have been at the forefront of many social movements, both locally and globally. Fridays for Future is a good example of a contemporary global movement where young people are leading the fight for climate action.
In the Indian context, whether it is about the issues of unemployment, gender justice, socio-economic inequalities, or citizenship rights, youth have been leading the country in demanding rights and building fraternity as established by our Constitution. Thus, the usual narrative of apathy in youth, which may be true for a small percentage of urban middle class youth population, is erroneously generalized to youth in general. In reality, youth are quite interested but we hardly see key youth issues like unemployment, climate change or socio-economic inequalities becoming central election issues.
Thus, the questions that confronts us is how to convert youth’s general interest in political participation to a more concrete initiation into the electoral process. There are a few challenges in bridging this gap like cumbersome voter registration process on one hand, a lack of Constitutional literacy programs by the State and Civil Society, or the lack of safe spaces where youth can discuss their confusions and perspectives without being judged.
As per Pew Research Center, voter registration is compulsory (and even automatic) for young people in more than half of the countries in the world (122 out of 226) including most countries in the Global North. If one fails to register, then it is punishable by a fine in countries like New Zealand, United Kingdom and Tonga. Although the ECI has tried its best to ease the process and make it hybrid (online+offline), it is a matter of chance if you get registered or not, especially if you are moving from one state to another.
In my own personal experience, I found that shifting my voter registration recently from one state to another can lead to you being excluded from both the state’s voter lists. With the unprecedented nature of migration among youth we are witnessing today, it is important to figure out this key aspect of youth voter registration.
In addition to the registration process, there are also serious concerns about data privacy issues in the voter list data. Of course, not all solutions suggested to increase youth voter participation like online voting may necessarily be a good idea, but definitely in terms of voter registration the process can be smoothened out so that young people get registered to vote easily. ECI’s important campaign for the first time youth voters, ‘Mera Pehla Vote Desh ke Liye‘, needs to be backed with a strong process of youth voter registration so that no one gets left out.
I was part of the team that worked with ECI for 2009 elections to run the campaign Jaago Re!, together by Janaagraha and Tata Tea to simplify the voter registration process and create a youth movement to engage with the electoral process. At that time we not only helped in increasing voter registration of youth but also mobilized youth to actively participate in the electoral process through basic citizenship literacy campaign. What we realised through the campaign was that a far more concerted effort needs to be made on citizenship and Constitutional literacy as that is a glaring lack among the youth of the country. In the next article, I will delve deeper into this piece of the puzzle to understand the central role of Constitutional literacy in aiding democratic engagement among the youth.
Asim Siddiqui teaches Philosophy and Development at Azim Premji University and works with many Youth Development Organizations. ‘The content and opinions expressed are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Azim Premji University.’