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Democracy Moves: NRI’s lead the charge in Indian elections
Three years ago, Soni Sori, a schoolteacher and a woman of indigenous heritage ("adivasi") in the state of Chattisgarh in central India, was arrested in New Delhi on charges of being a messenger for the outlawed Maoists.
Sori was jailed, physically abused with stones and electric shocks until last February when the Indian Supreme court freed her saying that the state of Chattisgarh which was prosecuting her could bring forth no credible evidence.
Now Sori is a leading candidate for the newly minted Indian political entity, the Aam Admi Party or the "The Common Man Party" as the world’s largest democracy enters its final lap in its general elections.
Much of Sori’s campaign is being funded by Indian’s overseas, including many in Canada which have reportedly pumped about C$20,000 to help her bring hope and change in India.
Similarly her fellow candidates Ashish Khetan, who is running in the New Delhi constituency is getting support from Non-resident Indians living in Japan, while Indians in Seattle are assisting AAP candidate Medha Patkar who is contesting from Mumbai North-East while Maya Vishwakarma, standing from Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh, is receiving support from California.
Activist Rachna Dhingra, who has been working for rehabilitation of Bhopal gas tragedy victims, is being supported by University Students for AAP (US for AAP) while Prof Anand Kumar from north east Delhi is receiving support from Indians in Singapore and New Zealand.
The AAP’s campaign has been tweaked from the 'support a constituency' initiative adopted during the Delhi assembly elections in December 2013 with considerable success. The party found that it won in over 70% of constituencies adopted by NRI teams.
The NRI teams include about 4,000 people across the globe who assist in fund-raising, running call campaigns, social media outreach and publicity. "These functions can be done remotely and don't require you to be on the ground,'' said Shalini Gupta, organization development advisor, AAP global supporters.
She added that the party was receiving about $10,000 every day as donations from the overseas community.
This trend of overseas support is not only assisting AAP candidates as cash is also flowing into India’s two major parties the Congress, and the Hindu BJP which is being helmed by Narendra Modi widely tipped to be India’s next prime minister. Regional parties especially those in Punjab are also getting a lot of international support said media in India.
Most polls show Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning the most seats in the election but falling short of a majority, an outcome that will probably end the 10-year rule of prime minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party. The 18-month-old Aam Aadmi and smaller regional parties are projected to hold the balance of power.
Turnout has averaged 66 per cent the first six of nine rounds of voting, up from 58 per cent in 2009, according to the Election Commission of India. That surpasses the previous record of 64 per cent in the 1984 elections following the assassination of primeminister Indira Gandhi, which led to a surge in support for her Congress party.
The push for change among overseas Indians is boosting support for parties other than Congress, according to Satish Misra, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
“The BJP has been working on wooing NRIs for a very long time and has had active members for several years,” Mr Misra said by phone from New Delhi. “The AAP has made some dents into the BJP’s NRI constituency with its anti-corruption narrative.”
The government says India’s diaspora – the biggest after China – includes about 10 million passport-holding NRIs such as the Britain-based billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, and another 12 million who qualify as a Person of Indian Origin, or PIO, who cannot vote but get certain privileges for travel and buying land.
Modi has invited NRIs to events in Gujarat, the state he has run since 2001, such as a kite festival and a biennial investor summit. The groups Overseas Friends of BJP and Overseas Friends of Narendra Modi have held contribution drives from Canada to Australia and organised discussions over tea to get familiar with the policies of Mr Modi, who once ran a tea kiosk.
Modi’s international image suffered in the wake of 2002 riots in Gujarat that killed about 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, which prompted the United States and European countries to deny him a visa. He has denied wrongdoing.
Aam Aadmi says about 31 per cent of the 304 million rupees it has raised since December 12 has come from overseas, mostly from the US. The party is the only one to publish its donations online.
Congress has recruited NRIs such as Shashi Tharoor, a former under secretary general at the United Nations, to help make policy. Raghuram Rajan, who taught at the University of Chicago, became a finance ministry adviser in 2012 and last September became governor of India’s central bank.
“Involving NRIs is very important,” said Vikash Dhanuka, 40, founder and chief executive of a trading company in Singapore, who will head back to India to vote. “We’re an influential community, and we’re very keen to do what we can.”
India’s supreme court, ruling on a complaint that the requirement to be present in India to vote was discriminatory and violated fundamental rights, this month said that NRIs would not be permitted to use postal ballots or online voting in this election, but postal voting would be considered in the future, the Times of India reported.
“There has been greater awareness and activism among NRIs in recent years,” said Sanjay Kumar, the New Delhi-based director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, which conducts opinion polls. “Giving NRIs the right to vote from abroad is only a matter of time.”
In Punjab, where a large portion of Indo-Canadians hail from, some 1,000 overseas –based Indians have arrived in their homestate to participate and canvass during the ongoing Lok sabha polls.
Kamaldeep Singh, an NRI volunteer of AAP in Canada, said the objective of the campaign was to propagate a corruption-free image of India across the globe, run a membership drive for AAP in Canada through various awareness programmes and involve NRI and Persons of Indian Origin to participate in the governance process.
The general election is taking place in nine phases, the longest election in the country's history, from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha in India. Voting will take place in all 543 parliamentary constituencies of India to elect members of parliament in the Lok Sabha. The result of this election will be declared on 16 May, before the 15th Lok Sabha completes its constitutional mandate on 31 May 2014.
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