Two recent developments have brought voter disenfranchisement to the center of public debate. In Bihar, controversy surrounding the State Information Register (SIR) has sparked fears that large segments of the electorate may be excluded in the upcoming elections. In Maharashtra, the Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition has highlighted serious anomalies in electoral rolls across multiple constituencies, raising questions about both their accuracy and integrity.
These concerns arise because the democratic legitimacy of any elected government rests on the integrity of the electoral process—that is the straightforward reason. But there is also a deeper historical one: disenfranchisement was the default political status of Indians under British rule, when adult franchise was absent and representation was restricted to a narrow elite. During the freedom movement, leaders devoted significant political energy to linking the vision of a new constitutional republic with the principle of universal adult franchise. Any doubts about the integrity of electoral rolls, and the possibility of disenfranchisement, are therefore both an affront to this history and a reminder of the stark realities of a disenfranchised past.
Under colonial rule, voting rights were limited and deeply exclusionary. The Government of India Act 1919 and the Government of India Act 1935 restricted the vote to those meeting specific qualifications relating to property, income, or education. Consequently, only 3 to 10 percent of Indians were enfranchised.
This prolonged exclusion made suffrage central to national aspirations. Demands for universal adult franchise appeared early in constitutional thinking, beginning with the Constitution of India Bill 1895, which asserted that “every citizen shall have the right to give one vote.”
Historical Constitutions and Adult Suffrage
Subsequent constitutional proposals reflected varying levels of commitment. The Lucknow Pact 1916 spoke only of creating “as broad a franchise as possible.” Similarly, the Commonwealth of India Bill 1925 preserved restrictions based on property and education.
By the late 1920s, positions crystallized in favour of universal franchise. The Nehru Report 1928, drafted under Motilal Nehru’s leadership, explicitly stated: “Every person of either sex who has attained the age of 21 and is not disqualified by law, shall be entitled to vote.” The Karachi Resolution, 1931, adopted by the Indian National Congress, resolved that any future constitution must rest on “adult suffrage.” By the 1940s, this had evolved into an unequivocal demand.
Historical documents such as the Sapru Report 1945, Ambedkar’s States and Minorities 1945, and the Gandhian Constitution of Free India (1946) all provided for universal adult suffrage. Even the Cabinet Mission Plan (1946), while declining to apply the principle for Constituent Assembly elections on practical grounds, acknowledged it as the “ideal”—a clear marker of how decisively the freedom movement had entrenched universal franchise as a non-negotiable political demand
The Constituent Assembly and Article 326
When the Constituent Assembly began its work in December 1946, the case had already been made. Its Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights recommended universal suffrage as a non-negotiable element of the future Constitution. The Draft Constitution of India 1948 stated: “The election to the House of the People shall be on the basis of adult suffrage…” When this was taken up in the Assembly, member Brajeshwar Prasad, who had a bit of a tendency to make odd interventions, opposed adult franchise, saying:
“I am opposed to adult franchise on grounds both theoretical and practical. I am opposed to adult franchise because it is a gross violation of the tenets of democracy. Adult franchise presupposes that the electorate is enlightened. Where the electorate is not enlightened, there cannot be parliamentary democracy...”
The Assembly President promptly reminded him that adult franchise had already been decided, closing further debate. No other member spoke, and the Assembly appeared to endorse the President’s position. The commitment to adult franchise was thus settled and enshrined in Article 326 of the Constitution of India, which provides: “Elections to the House of the People and to the Legislative Assemblies of States shall be on the basis of adult suffrage.”
The first general elections in 1951–52 registered 173 million voters, and many elections have followed since.
The controversies surrounding the SIR in Bihar and electoral rolls in Maharashtra illustrate how fragile the promise of the franchise can be in practice. Universal adult franchise like all constitutional values is not a self-sustaining but must be continuously realized and upheld through institutions and processes. As current controversies underscore, one key institution in this regard is the Election Commission. In the upcoming blogposts we will look at the how Indian constituent assembly engaged engaged with the election commission as a constitutional institution.