Democratic Backlash? Revisiting Competing Explanations for the 1977 Post-Emergency Electoral Verdict in India

摘要

The general elections for the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha, in 1977 marked a double transition for the country's political development. After a 21-month period of emergency government, imposed in June 1975, the elections signalled a return to the democratic rules of the political game and at the same time they effected a significant change of government at the national level for the first time in post-independence India. The 1977 general elections seemed, according to most scholarly and journalistic assessments, to have been a resounding 'vote for freedom' and to have ushered in an era of democratic revival. Until today a more systematic evaluation of the power of the various competing explanations advanced for the 1977 results seems to be wanting. Based on the analysis of available data, this article finds that the 1977 vote on the whole was less a 'vote for freedom' or democracy and against the oppressive Emergency regime, but rather the result of successful collaboration of a number of former opposition parties and the consequent reduction in the fragmentation of the anti-Congress vote.