Voting Behaviour in India and Its Determinants

Introduction

Voting is one of the most commonly used terms in a contemporary age of democratic politics. The ever-increasing popularity of democratic theory and practices has even made this term a household name. In democratic systems, and their number is quite large and ever-increasing, each adult citizen uses ‘voting’ as a means for expressing his approval or disapproval of governmental decisions, policies and programmers of various political parties and the qualities of the candidates who are engaged in the struggle to get the status of being the representatives of the people.Man is a rational creature in the philosophical sense of term; he is not so rational in the realms of his economic or political behaviour. The behaviour of man is influenced by several irrational factors and pressure groups in invoking religious and communal factors, an influence of money or charismatic personality of a leader and host of other irrational forces have their definite influence on the minds of the voters.

What Is Voting Behaviour?

“Voting Behaviours is a field of study concerned with the ways in which people tend to vote in a public election and the reasons why they vote as they do.”
Voting behaviour is primarily a kind of political behaviour of majority of voters in a country. By having a clear understanding of the voter’s behaviour, it is easy to understand why and how the public decision-makers make their decisions.

Voting behaviour is not confined to the examination of voting statistics, records and computation of electoral shifts and swings. It also involves an analysis of individual psychological processes (perception, emotion, and motivation) and their relation to political action as well as of institutional patterns, such as the communication process and their impact on an election.

Voting Behaviour In India: Determinants

In India following main political and socio-economic factors which act as determinates of voting behaviours in our Democratic system;

1. Charisma: It means exceptional quality of a factor and override group elements leader that becomes a source of attraction and reverence for the people in large numbers;in an opposite sense, it also means a source of awe and terror that frightens the people in large numbers not to speak or dare to do anything against the wishes of the mighty leader.
2. Caste: Despite the adoption of several provisions which prohibit action and discrimination on its basis, caste continues to be a determinant of political behaviours. Politicisation of caste and casteism in politics has been a well-known reality of the Indian political system.
3. Religion: The existence of such political parties and neo-political groups as stand linked with a particular religion, for example, Muslim League, Akali Dal, Hindu Maha Sabha, ShivSena etc., have been one of the reasons behind the continued role of religion as a determinant of voting behaviour. Religious pluralism of the Indian society is a major feature of the environment of Indian political system and it greatly influences the struggle for power among political parties.
4. Language: India is a multilingual state. Linguism also surves as the factor in voting behaviour. The organization of states on linguistic basis fully reflects the importance of language as a factor of politics in India. Since people have an emotional attachment with their languages, they easily get influenced whenever there comes up any issue relating to language. Linguistic interests always influence voting behaviour.
5. Money Factor: India is a poor country with a large number of people living below poverty line. Money as such plays a vital role in determining the voting behaviour of the people in India. A rich candidate or party has always better chances of winning the elections. But it is to be pointed out here that it happens only in normal circumstances and not during a wave –election or when other key issues are involved. Despite organizing a very expensive election campaign, the Congress(I) lost power in 1989.
6. Sub-Nationalism: Ethnic pluralism, communalism, regionalism and sub-nationalism are the hard realities of Indian society. Of late sub-nationalism has become a crucial factor in influencing the voting behaviour of the people. At times a secessionist group gives a call for the boycott of elections and uses pressure tactics to forces the voters either not to vote in favour of a particular party. Some regional political parties like some fractions of the Alkali Dal, Naga Nationalist Organization, Gorkha League, Jharkha party, AASU and AAGSP in Assam have raised parochial slogans from time to time and have disturbed the emotional stability of the people of their states. Such actions of some political parties have at times influenced some people to organize themselves on narrow and parochial lines.
7. The performance of the Party in Power: Each Political party contests elections on the basis of an election manifesto, and after coming into power, it is expected to fulfil the promises made there in. This has happened mainly because of a corresponding increase in the number of „floating voter‟ or "switchers‟ who are mostly young men and women from educated upper middle class and are ready to shift their support from one party to another on the basis of their performance.
8. Mass literacy: Mass literacy has been another factor of voting behaviours in India. It is because of this weakness of the people that political parties, communal groups and militant outfits, are in a position to exploit the sentiments of the people in the name of caste, religion, region and other such factors. However, despite this feature, the common sense and maturity born out of an experience of the past have also been playing a big role in influence the voters mind and actions. In 1977 they united to defeat the forces authoritarianism and 1980, they again to defeat this united non-performers. 
9. Factionalism: The voters are getting disenchanted with some of the political parties because of their inability to overcome factionalism.They are turning to locally organized parties or regional parties which, because of their small organizational network and limited operational based are relatively less affected by factionalism.
10. Public Esteem of the Candidate: A candidate report with the people with constituency or his known qualities or contribution in any value spread of activity always acts as a factor of voting behavior. Apart from his parties loyalty or opinion on various issue and problem, a voter while making his choice always takes into account the nature and level of his association with the candidate. 
11. Election campaigns: Each party launches a vigorous election campaign for influencing the voters in its favour.Use of such means as mass meetings, street meetings, personal contacts, posters, poster war, speeches by film stars, TV and Radio broadcasts, newspaper advertisement, hand bills, processions and propaganda, is made to win votes, particularly the floating votes.Election Campaign in designed to make a voter believe that his interest can be best served by the party, the candidate of the party contesting from his constituency.Poll eve campaigning plays a role in influencing the choice of the voters.A party which is in a position to create an impression through its election campaign that it has a chance to win, can earn some additional votes as several voters try to side with the side which they perceive to be a winning side.

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Voter’s behaviour in 16th Lok Sabha Election

Dominance of the dynasty politics, corruption, anti-incumbency, a Prime Minister who failed to have communication with the people of India, infation, rising number of women-centric crimes and lack of proper governance were some of the major factors affecting the voter’s behaviour in 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. However, broadly one can divide the factors affecting voter’s behaviour under three heads, viz., emotional factors, Prime Minister Candidate, and Media.

Emotional Factors affecting voter’s behaviour

It has been found that there are a range of factors that affect a voter’s behaviour and some of these which effected the voter’s behaviour in the 16th Lok Sabha Election include:

• Anger- Generating an emotion of anger among the voters regarding a political party can help in generating votes for the other political party. In the 16th LS Election, the anti-incumbency factor towards INC (Indian National Congress) was so dominant in these elections that it was clearly visible in the voter’s behaviour. BJP, in its campaign, understood and channelized this anger in tapping more votes for their party.
• Anxiety- Voters who face anxiety during the elections vote for those candidates who manage to bring forth the effective manifesto of policies and promises. As the results of the Lok Sabha Elections 2014 showed that the voters felt agitated and anxious.
• Insecurity- In the studies conducted by Psychology experts, it has also been found that insecurity among voters regarding their future as well as safety and security of their life can play a pivotal role in their behaviour. In the Lok Sabha Election 2014, it was clearly visible that the voters lost confidence in the present Union Government, which shifted the voting graph completely towards a party that are ready to offer everything that a voter demanded.

Prime Ministerial Candidates affecting Voter’s Behaviour in 2014 Lok Sabha Elections

The most drastic change observed in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections was that instead of being party-specific, the elections became person-specific. In fact, it was this factor which became one of the most important factors in the outcome of the 16th Lok Sabha Election. It was the rising popularity of Narendra Modi as a decisive leader that overshadowed anti-incumbency factor related to the UPA-II Government.

Media’s Impact on Voter’s Behaviour

The media and its use in political campaigns also affect the voter’s behaviour. The media was use at its best in the 16th Lok Sabha Election. On the one hand, BJP led by Narendra Modi managed to conceptualize his political campaign through social media and immediately captured the youth of India. On the other hand Indian National Congress led by Rahul Gandhi was found to be wanting on this count. In the past or even in the present, no other political party has managed to use the social media to engage a large population of youth, a section which lacks interest in the politics of the country.

The primary difference between the past elections and the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections was a societal behaviour shift. The graph took a deep shift from traditional community boundaries like religion and caste, to the more transparent factors such as economic status and geo-location. 

Another crucial difference was a less relevant Hindu-Muslim division because huge number of young voters influenced the votes and this population does not consider sectarian impulse as a primary factor during voting.

Conclusion

The continuity in the operation of India‟s political system as a developing democratic political system is gradually training the Indian voters. The process of emergence of an issue based political struggle in place of a caste or religion or personality dominated struggle for power is very slowly but gradually taking shape. Elections occupy a prominent place in the democratic government. It is a means through which people express and enforce their political opinion and regulate the political organization of the society. However, the behaviour of a voter is influenced by several factors such as religion, caste, community, language, money, policy or ideology, a purpose of the polls, extent of franchise and the like political parties and groups make use of these variables for the sake of winning the battle of the ballot box. 

It is, therefore, imperative that the use of these determinants should be avoided and elections should be conducted in a very free and fair manner. It also depends upon whether the system allows freedom of thought, expression and association to the people. The mere presence of an electoral system does not make a political system democratic. The will of people is expressed through voting in elections and therefore, all undemocratic and unfair means like manipulating and rigging need to be avoided in the elections. No such action is taken which would in any way undermine the popular will expressed through elections.