India’s pioneering psephologists slice through the clutter with some revelations: women voter turnout will be higher than men in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
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00:00 It is absolutely shocking and it is a crisis that something needs to be 21 million people.
00:07 That's like all the voters of Jharkhand, women are not allowed to vote.
00:10 So these are women who are over 18, who are Indian, who are resident and who have just
00:15 not denied their right to vote.
00:18 Why?
00:19 Because they're not registered or for various technical reasons.
00:23 And it really is unacceptable.
00:25 Hello and welcome to Outlook Bibliophile.
00:35 Today we have a most interesting book about the general elections.
00:39 It's perhaps the most analytical book on Indian elections written by a philologist Dr. Pranoy
00:44 Roy and Dorab Soparivala.
00:46 And here we are going to discuss that today.
00:48 Dr. Roy, to begin with, it's a rare occasion that you are on that side of the…
00:54 I'm on the wrong side, yes.
00:57 You come here.
00:58 One of the major, important sections of the book I found is actually about the women voters.
01:06 It seems there is actually both good news and bad news.
01:10 If you could start with the bad news first.
01:12 There are 21 million women voters missing from the electoral rolls.
01:16 Is that right?
01:17 It is absolutely shocking and it is a crisis that something needs to be 21 million people.
01:24 Just like all the voters of Jharkhand, women are not allowed to vote.
01:28 So these are women who are over 18, who are Indian, who are resident and who have just
01:33 not denied their right to vote.
01:35 Why?
01:36 Because they're not registered or for various technical reasons.
01:40 And it really is unacceptable.
01:43 And perhaps the big giveaway is that there's also a big north-south divide.
01:50 Most of the missing women are in the northern part of India, northern states, Uttar Pradesh,
01:55 Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan.
01:59 And in the southern part, most women are registered and most women have the right to vote.
02:05 So the north of India, the women in the north of India are actually terribly deprived of
02:12 democracy right now.
02:14 And really something needs to be done, Daurab, don't you think?
02:18 Well, of those 21 odd women, around 6 million are in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which means
02:25 there are about 80,000 women on average per constituency who are missing.
02:30 The question is why they're missing is not known.
02:34 The Election Commission does the very best it can.
02:36 But there obviously must be some reason, sociological or whatever it might be, that is stopping
02:42 these women from being registered.
02:43 Because they do periodic drives, do all kinds of things.
02:46 But it is a shame that so many people, whether they vote or not is another matter.
02:51 Correct.
02:52 They should at least be there on the…
02:53 Rolls.
02:54 That is an issue.
02:55 And this is when, in fact in 2019, you point out in the book that women might outnumber
03:00 men.
03:01 This will be probably, almost certainly the first election when the Lok Sabha elections,
03:06 women turnout will be above men.
03:07 It used to be 20% behind men.
03:11 Hardly any women would turn out.
03:12 This time, for the first time, they're going to be ahead.
03:15 They've already gone ahead of men in turnout in state assembly elections.
03:18 They'll go more in terms of turnout, not in terms of numbers, because there are more
03:22 men on the rolls than women.
03:24 But percentage turnout, women will overtake men.
03:27 So if you were to put more women on the rolls, the odds are if the same proportion turned
03:31 out, then you might actually have even higher numbers.
03:33 As you said, it shows actually the urge to, I mean, they do want to come out and vote.
03:38 One of the most actually heartwarming things when we go on our field trips is to see outside
03:43 polling booths, queues of women.
03:46 And I have been to polling booths where women have walked in and come out and said, "No,
03:49 couldn't do my, couldn't vote."
03:51 Why?
03:52 Why?
03:53 This is like our fundamental right.
03:55 And if a woman comes in, she can show she's over 18, she should be allowed to vote, not
03:59 that there's some technicality.
04:02 And the other beauty is, I think, is that they're fiercely independent-minded.
04:09 They do not listen to their husbands anymore.
04:11 We have interviewed so many, the husband standing next door to her, and we say, "Listen to him,
04:16 forget it.
04:17 I make up my own mind."
04:19 And he stands quietly like a mouse.
04:21 In fact, you point out that more women turnout is actually a disadvantage of BJP.
04:28 Generally, and it's been traditionally so, that BJP is much stronger amongst men and
04:33 much weaker amongst women voters for many years, decades.
04:38 And that was even in 2014.
04:39 BJP had 10 percent higher support amongst men than women.
04:45 But on the other hand, amongst young voters, youngsters, BJP has about a 9 percent lead
04:51 amongst young voters.
04:53 Another interesting point I picked up from the book is that lower turnout, actually,
05:00 it's advantage BJP.
05:03 How is that?
05:04 It's not advantage BJP.
05:05 It's advantage Carter-based parties.
05:08 If you're a member of the CPM or the BJP, you're more likely to turn out than what Gandhi
05:12 used to call a foreign member of the Congress.
05:15 So you're not relaxed, you're having a beer or something at lunchtime.
05:17 While on the other hand, if you're a BJP supporter or a CPM supporter, you're more motivated
05:22 because these are ideological-based parties.
05:26 And also, the Carter are much more organized.
05:28 They go and get voters out from their homes, bring them to the polling booth.
05:33 They prepare in advance.
05:35 The organization behind a Carter-based party for election turnout is crucial.
05:41 And very often we talk about swing being the main thing, how many votes have you got.
05:47 Turnout makes a world of a difference in winning or losing an election.
05:51 People across the world have focused on turnout as the easier thing to do than try to win
05:57 votes, because then you have to convince people, you have to have programs, you have to win
06:02 them away from the other side.
06:04 Turnout is a technical thing.
06:05 Just make sure you have good poll station, booth management, Carters go out, and you
06:11 can win an election on turnout.
06:12 You know, there is a lot of talk about this grand opposition unity, you know, there's
06:17 all opposition parties sort of coming together.
06:19 And in the book you say that the index of opposition unity actually over time, over
06:25 the decades, results in more seats to the opposition parties if they come together.
06:30 Have I got that right?
06:31 Absolutely right.
06:32 It used to be, we have something called the index of opposition unity, where if it's only
06:37 a two-party system, it's 100, and worse and worse it gets, goes down 30, 40, 50.
06:42 I mean, we've had an average around 60 to 70 IOU, index of opposition unity.
06:48 Now what happens is, in the old days, 1% point increase in IOU used to give three seats,
06:54 now it gives an opposition an extra seven seats.
06:57 Why is that?
06:58 That is partly because over the years, people are winning elections by lower and lower margins
07:05 of victory.
07:06 So you improve your opposition unity a bit, and you get, switch many more seats.
07:12 You know, you used to win by double what you win now, so it was tough to swing, to get
07:20 seats over to your side.
07:21 Now it's much easier.
07:23 So much more sensitive, seats are much more sensitive to both swing and IOU.
07:29 You know, if you look at the elections, say, in 1980, probably the BJP, the Congress won
07:35 about 350 odd seats, but probably got 44, 45% of the vote.
07:40 This time the BJP plus NDA, one got the same vote, same seats, with 38% of the votes, because
07:46 the opposition is divided.
07:48 So the leading parties winning with fewer and fewer votes, it can continue with that
07:52 only so long as the opposition is divided.
07:55 The opposition unites, for every seat, it picks up, for every increase in the index
07:59 of opposition unity, it picks up more seats.
08:04 The other interesting point I noted is about, you know, you're saying that the era of anti-incumbency
08:10 is over.
08:11 You know, the voter is getting wiser, you know, it was an angry voter before.
08:16 What is this, I mean, what is this change about?
08:18 How has this come about?
08:19 Well, we looked at all the data and basically the whole book is database, it's not us speaking,
08:24 it's the data speaking and it showed that you can divide the last 70 years since the
08:29 first elections were in 1952 and divide it into three phases.
08:34 The first 25 years, 52 to 77 was post-independence struggle.
08:41 Voters were believing, trusting, they had a honeymoon with all the great leaders and
08:46 it was a pro-incumbency, naive voter.
08:51 Then things, they were not delivering, we had a very slow rate of growth, they saw nobody
08:55 coming to their constituency, people staying in Delhi for five years, coming only at election
09:00 time, they were getting more and more angry.
09:01 It all started, began, real change started around '67 and by '77, they were fed up.
09:09 Then from '77, the next 25 years, they just threw every government out.
09:14 It's called the anti-incumbency phase.
09:17 Anti-incumbency is a phrase which Dorab actually coined long ago.
09:20 In the first 25 years, 80% of governments were voted back.
09:24 You did whatever, good, bad, you were voted back.
09:27 Next 71% were voted out, only 30% voted back.
09:31 You did good, bad, you were thrown out.
09:33 So this is the angry phase.
09:34 That's the angry phase.
09:35 And now it's 50-50.
09:36 50% of governments are voted back, 50% of governments are thrown out.
09:41 And it tends to be very clear that the governments that are delivering are being voted back.
09:48 So it's now perform or perish.
09:50 The other question was, you know, is this 2019 elections going to be a sort of an amalgamation
09:55 of regional elections?
09:57 Right.
09:58 Very much so.
09:59 And it has been a pattern over time.
10:03 We have got, we have developed, we took the British system of first-past-the-post and
10:06 did a bit, it has a lot of unfairness, that system, particularly for a large country.
10:11 You can have 15% of the votes and it's spread all over this country, you get no seats.
10:17 But if you got 5% of the vote, this constituency in particular, you'll get 5% of the seats.
10:21 So what has happened is, we've taken first-past-the-post and done a bit of jugaad and made it a much
10:27 more fair system.
10:29 As a result, if your votes are concentrated, you get a big bang for your buck.
10:34 You get many more seats per vote.
10:37 And you don't have the disadvantage of it being spread all over the country and the
10:40 disadvantage of the first-past-the-post system.
10:43 So the growth of regional parties has been phenomenal.
10:46 They've gone from about 4% of the vote to about 35% of the vote.
10:51 And for 35% of the vote, they're getting 35% of the seats, which is what it should be.
10:56 You should get votes per seat.
10:57 But first-past-the-post generally does not give you that.
11:01 But Indian genius in innovation, jugaad, has made first-past-the-post a much fairer system
11:09 than it was ever designed to be.
11:12 If you look at a party like Apna Dal in UP, it's a party of Kurmis, concentrated in a
11:17 certain area.
11:18 Now if these Kurmis are spread all over UP, they'd get no seats.
11:23 Similarly, the Jats, if they were all over UP, they wouldn't win too many seats because
11:27 they're in Jat land, that small area where the bank for the buck is much bigger.
11:32 So if you're concentrated, you win.
11:34 If you're dissipated, spread all over, you don't do as well.
11:38 The other question was about opinion polls.
11:40 I mean, since the season is going to start soon.
11:43 And though contrary to popular belief, your book points out that opinion polls do get
11:49 the direction mostly right.
11:51 Actually, we've got 833 opinion polls and exit polls over 20 years.
12:00 And it shows that if you look at whether they get a winner right or not, it's 97%, which
12:08 is fantastic.
12:09 If you look at whether they get the seats right or not, very poor.
12:15 Most of them underestimate.
12:17 Most of them play safe.
12:19 You get the winner right, but you get the seats wrong and you underestimate.
12:22 There's a general trend towards underestimating.
12:24 I must say this 97% is excluding one election.
12:29 That's 2004.
12:31 Every poll got it wrong.
12:32 Zero.
12:33 So that's considered an outlier.
12:35 Excluding that is 97% getting only which party or which leader will win.
12:40 And if you look at from the public's point of view, the viewers' point of view, the readers'
12:43 point of view, I mean, he'd like to know the seats, but what he wants to know is who's
12:47 winning.
12:48 So, as long as you get that right, if you get that wrong, there's hell to pay.
12:53 But you know, if you, so long as you get that right, you can get away with 30 seats out,
12:57 40 seats out.
12:58 Finally, I told you who the winner is.
12:59 And in a democracy, what matters is who's going to be chief minister or prime minister.
13:05 Doesn't really matter if you've got a majority of 30 or 40 or 50.
13:07 It's nice to know and nice to get it right.
13:10 But what is more important is to get the result right.
13:12 So, as the book is called The Verdict, and I know I'm talking to the foremost philologist
13:17 of a country, who is winning in 2019.
13:20 We knew you'd ask that.
13:22 Well, I have a simple answer for that.
13:25 You know, anybody who says he's winning is either a liar, a fool or a politician.
13:33 Well I do feel that requires, what we try to do in the book is try and give people pointers
13:42 towards how to look forward, how to analyze, because it's very early.
13:46 They say a week's a long time in politics.
13:48 We've got two months to go before the results.
13:52 So you need to follow certain patterns in the book.
13:57 Look at the past and we show how things, like for example, common thing is we all sit together
14:02 and say, "Gujarat, there'll be so many seats.
14:06 Who will get so much?"
14:08 History has shown us of elections that most people in our discussions give it halfway
14:13 plus a little bit and the other side halfway minus a little bit.
14:16 But actually Lok Sabha elections are a series of landslides in every state, which go against
14:22 each other.
14:23 I mean, what happens in Tamil Nadu is totally different from Bengal, totally different from
14:27 Gujarat.
14:28 But when you're forecasting and you're looking at a state, don't go at this half, half mark.
14:34 Kate ki takkar and neck and neck.
14:37 Doesn't happen.
14:38 It's a combination of many different landslides that compensate and get your final results.
14:42 So like that, we give many pointers in the book on how to predict elections and how to
14:48 look at an opinion poll and say, "Okay, it's showing this, but it's historically underestimated
14:55 the winner by 30 seats."
15:01 But also be aware, if it's very neck and neck in the forecast, then you don't know where
15:06 they're underestimating.
15:07 So you have to, we mentioned all these to help each person as they get closer and closer
15:12 to the election, analyze it properly and come out with their own forecast.
15:16 Of course, we will also, but there is a warning about saying who's going to win.
15:23 3% can make a world of a difference.
15:25 3% can make 45 seats going one side and 45 seats the other side.
15:30 So 90 seat difference.
15:32 Can you feel 3%?
15:34 Very tough.
15:35 So we believe in data, do good opinion polls and go with that.
15:39 So we will come out with that.
15:40 And then we'll actually, we'll answer you the question after the results are out.
15:44 What most people do when they're making their own forecast is they just forecast to the
15:47 national level.
15:48 You need to start forecasting each of the 15 states individually and then add up.
15:54 And you might find that you get a totally different result.
15:57 It's because you say 543 seats, 272 majority, you'll get about 280, 290, you'll get 220,
16:02 230.
16:03 That's not the way it happens.
16:04 There are landslides in almost every state.
16:07 So who's going to sweep Tamil Nadu?
16:09 Who's going to sweep Andhra?
16:11 Who's going to sweep Bihar?
16:13 They require different answers when you put them in one column each.
16:16 That is when you get the total.
16:18 So don't start with the total, end with the total.
16:22 Thank you very much Pranab.
16:23 Thank you very much.
16:24 Thank you.
16:25 Thank you.
16:26 Thank you.
16:27 [Music]