The temple car festival in the Indian town of Puri (Odisha state) is said to have so stunned the foreign travellers like Franciscan Monk Odoric of Pordenone in the 13th century that Europe came to accept the term "Juggernaut" as meaning something so immense, so powerful and overwhelming. From HG Wells to so many writers used the term juggernaut to describe events and feelings of people in their works. The term has come to part of a few thousand Hindustani words that have been incorporated into English dictionaries.
If a mere temple car of wood, few hundred tons in weight, invokes such awe and wonder, elections in the coming days in India that involves the biggest exercise in democracy anywhere in the world should actually be stupefying. How the world takes India may be a question for debate, but how India takes this mammoth exercise is a wonder beyond anything that ancient, medieval or modern history has ever witnessed. Take some statistics to understand this wonder:
1. Elections will be held for 543 constituencies in 07 phases between 11 April to 19 May 2019 across India. Indian Parliament has 543 representatives of people from across all communities and minorities including marginalized sections called Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes.
2. A total of 1,841 political parties will contest in the general election 2019. More than 8000 candidates are being fielded by these parties.
3. As estimated by a leading center for media studies, the elections will cost INR 500 bn (USD 75 mn)
4. 90,00,000,000 voters are expected vote. This is 9,00,000,000 (10% increase approx) more than the last general election in 2014.
5. In the last general election in 2014, 6600000000 people voted. Statistically speaking, it is about 81 percent. If we take that as a trend, 7200000000 people will vote today. Nearly a sixth of these voters are first time voters. Approximately two-thirds of the voters are around 35 years of age.
5. Election Commission of India will set up 10,35,918 Polling Stations in the country. This itself perhaps is a world record. If China does not turn to electoral democracy, such records set by India can never be broken by any other country.
6. 11,00,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are slated to be used in these polling stations.
7. Even transgenders are registered as voters. Approximately 39000 are registered.
The 17th General Election in a span of nearly eight decades of the independent history of the country speaks volumes about the strong foundations that the makers of India Constitution sowed in 1950. It also reflects the strong ethos that are ingrained in the Indian psyche, literate or illiterate by common standards of the world. It is a belief that transcends the normal, reflecting the innate ecclesiastic character of India.
The Juggernaut will roll in the phases that it is scheduled. Yet again, it will decide the course this great democracy will take in the next five years. The course that it takes will not only affect the dreams of its billions of citizens; it will also affect the destinies of South Asia in an era when dominance over South Asian waters is vigorously sought by neighbors with not so democratic a credential that this Juggernaut can flaunt.
