In the nascent free India, just out of the throes of colonial rule, the first-ever general elections were marked by Jawaharlal Nehru’s remark, “Naya Hindustan Zindabad.”
During his campaign tour for the Congress Party across the country in 1951, as crowds chanted “Pandit Nehru Zindabad” (long live Pandit Nehru), Mr. Nehru would be quick to urge them to embrace an alternative rallying cry — “Naya Hindustan Zindabad” (glory to the new India), notes historian Ramchandra Guha in his 2002 piece in the World Policy Journal titled “Democracy’s Biggest Gamble.”
India bestowed universal adult franchise, to an eligible electorate of 175 million, more than 80% of them illiterate, spread over an area of more than a million square miles. The task of reaching every last mile, bracing unforgiving terrains, weather, was pushed by one man: Sukumar Sen, the first Chief Election Commissioner of India (CEC).
