Those of us who still receive snail mail would have noticed an additional postmark on letters delivered recently exhorting citizens to “Vote for Sure” in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The Department of Posts, known as India Post, has played an important role over the years in supporting the smooth conduct of elections by handling postal ballots and delivering voter identification cards. More importantly, before the advent of electronic media, the department also played a role in building awareness about elections because it was one of the largest nationwide channels of communication available to the Union government. In the past, the postal network has helped political parties and candidates connect with voters and keep their cadre informed about various developments. Governments have also pressed India Post to issue stamps to appeal to specific constituencies during election season. The stamp on V.D. Savarkar issued in 1970 is an early example of this. But that is a story for another day.
While the Election Commission has in the last decade experimented with awareness messages on Meghdoot postcards and special covers, postage stamps were, in the past, the mainstay of India Post’s attempt to build awareness about elections.
A postcard mailed from Lucknow (August 23, 1920) to Benares Hindu University (August 25, 1920) seeking votes in an election to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council from the Allahabad University constituency. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
A postcard mailed from Indore (February 24, 1977) to Surat (February 26, 1977) seeking support for the Janata Party. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
In 1962, the Posts and Telegraphs Department issued 50 lakh commemorative postage stamps on panchayati raj in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election. This is possibly the finest stamp of independent India. The stamp features a panchayat meeting under a banyan tree with a house in the background. Four men and a woman are shown seated on a raised platform, and in front of them on the ground are seated three men and a woman. The women are not veiled, but the woman member of the panchayat samiti appears to be seated lower than her male counterparts. An outline of India’s map is shown above the trunk of the tree and Parliament House with the national flag flying atop it is shown in the background. The thoughtful design conveyed the message that the supreme legislative body of the republic and the nation state derived nourishment and support from village panchayats.
A special cover issued to mark the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
A special cover issued to mark the 2019 Haryana Assembly election. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
A special cover issued in 2016 to promote the National Electoral Roll Purification Programme in Meghalaya. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
The panchayati raj stamp’s information brochure notes that “village panchayats or the village councils have functioned effectively in the village from times immemorial and panchayati raj seeks to give this traditional form a new content and a new vitality to make it an effective instrument for the tasks of the present”, with the panchayat samiti being “the effective unit for planning and development”. It adds that “[t]he basic philosophy of the panchayati raj system is that the panchayat must draw its strength and sanction from the village people as a whole, working in cooperation with self-governing bodies at higher levels in an organic set-up”. In other words, panchayati raj is seen as “a system of grassroots democracy which seeks to link the individual family in the remotest village with the Central government”.
A 2021 Meghdoot postcard with a message to build awareness about voter enrolment in the run-up to the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly election. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
A 2016 Meghdoot postcard issued on May 8, 2016, featuring a message in Tamil to build voter awareness in the run-up to the 2016 Puducherry Assembly election. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
Transition to multiparty democracy
The 1967 general election marked the transition of India to a multiparty democracy. Twenty lakh general election stamps issued in the run-up to that election featured people from different backgrounds, representing the diversity of India, in a queue outside a polling booth, with a woman casting her vote shown in inset. The stamp’s information brochure notes that “[t]he observance of elective principles in the selection of rulers and kings can be traced back in India to the earliest pages of history”. It offered examples of elected leadership in Vedic and Buddhist literature and described the institutional details of elections in those times.
The brochure noted that while most republics eventually got absorbed into kingdoms, the heads of trade guilds, crafts associations, and village assemblies continued to be chosen through elections of sorts. Some of these institutions survived until the 18th century. The brochure then goes on to outline the evolution of elected bodies under the colonial administration starting in 1892.
The front of an envelope used to deliver an Elector Photo Identity Card. It shares helpline numbers, information about the Election Commission’s various digital initiatives, slogans, and features a comic to build awareness about voting. Such envelopes are printed in several languages. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
The back of an envelope used to deliver an Elector Photo Identity Card. It shares helpline numbers, information about the Election Commission’s various digital initiatives, slogans, and features a comic to build awareness about voting. Such envelopes are printed in several languages. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
The brochure ends with interesting statistics. It notes that the election in the world’s largest democracy will involve 22.5 crore voters across 2,50,000 polling stations manned by 15 lakh officers. More importantly, it highlighted the growing efficiency of the Election Commission. The first general election conducted in 1952 was spread over four months. The duration was reduced to 20 days in 1957 and 10 days in 1962. It was hoped that the 1967 election would be completed within a week. In contrast, it will take more than six weeks to complete the 2024 election. A third stamp issued in 1973 complemented the 1962 and 1967 stamps and added substance to our imagination of democracy. On the occasion of the 25th year of Independence, the government issued a stamp on Dr B.R. Ambedkar. The stamp featured Ambedkar in the foreground of Parliament House with the national flag flying atop the building.
The stamp’s information brochure recalled Ambedkar’s role in the making of the Constitution. The cachet of the first day cover of the stamp reproduced a famous quote by Ambedkar: “We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well.”
Capturing grassroots democracy
These three stamps—panchayati raj, general election, and Ambedkar—capture the essence of the grassroots democracy and electoral democracy envisioned by our founding fathers. After this, elections were the theme of stamps on two other occasions.
A miniature sheet with three stamps around the theme of Bharat—The Mother of Democracy, issued on January 25, 2024. | Photo Credit: Department of Posts
The stamp issued on the diamond jubilee of the Election Commission of India in 2010 featured an Elector Photo Identity Card and women from different backgrounds queued up to vote on an electronic voting machine. The stamp’s brochure offered a detailed account of the history, functions, and constitutional powers of the commission that supervises “the largest and perhaps most complex exercise in the world in terms of population, size, geographical dimension, and the diversity of climate, language and cultural matrix”. The brochure emphasised two points: it noted that the Constitution “insulates the Election Commission from executive influence through specific safeguards” and that the commission facilitates the “peaceful, orderly and democratic transfer of power”.
The Department of Posts issued a stamp on the Election Commission on January 25 in the run-up to this year’s general election. Like the earlier stamps on elections, it covered the diversity of the country. There was a novel element in the design though: it showed an elderly person in a wheelchair. The information brochure, too, emphasised that the commission was “spearheading efforts for 100 per cent participation of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, along with targeted interventions for women, first-time voters, tribal groups, and persons with disabilities”.
The first day cover of the commemorative stamp on Dr B.R. Ambedkar issued on April 14, 1973. | Photo Credit: Vikas Kumar
A commemorative stamp depicting panchayati raj issued on January 26, 1962. | Photo Credit: Department of Posts
Highlights
- India Post has played an important role over the years in supporting the smooth conduct of elections by handling postal ballots and delivering voter identification cards.
- In 1962, the Posts and Telegraphs Department issued 50 lakh commemorative postage stamps on panchayati raj before the Lok Sabha election, which is possibly the finest stamp of independent India.
- Three stamps—panchayati raj, general election, and B.R. Ambedkar—capture the essence of the grassroots democracy and electoral democracy envisioned by our founding fathers.
The brochure of the 1967 election stamp covered both the precolonial antecedents of Indian democracy and the modern institutional origins of electoral democracy. In 2024, the government covered these two points through two different sets of stamps: the stamp on inclusive elections covered contemporary electoral democracy, and a separate issue, Bharat—The Mother of Democracy, offered a detailed account of the precolonial roots of Indian democracy. There are important differences between the 1967 and the 2024 stamps. First, the stamps and brochure issued in 2024 highlight the diversity of precolonial sources of Indian democracy: the Lichchhavi Gana-Rajya and Buddhist sanghas, Sangam literature, and Tamil epigraphical sources, particularly the 10th century Uttiramerur inscription and the inclusive traditions of the Sikh community. Second, unlike 1967, the 2024 brochure is triumphalist insofar as it claims for India the status of the mother of democracy “in the recorded history of mankind”.
A commemorative stamp on the work of the Election Commission of India issued on January 25, 2010. | Photo Credit: Department of Posts
A commemorative stamp focussing on the general election issued on January 13, 1967. | Photo Credit: Department of Posts
The brochure adds: “When Bharat is entering into Amrit Kaal, it is opportune time to reclaim the legacy of our forefather[s] and great thinkers who sowed the seed of democracy in our DNA. Bharat was, is and will remain forever the mother of democracy.” The focus is on claiming rather than being a democracy. The focus is on past glories and current technological advances, neglecting the crucial question of institutional integrity that is essential for free and fair elections in the country. This is an issue of concern ahead of an important general election.
Vikas Kumar teaches economics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and is the author of Numbers as Political Allies: The Census in Jammu and Kashmir (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
