FIRST INDIAN ELECTIONS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 93, 6 May 1937, Page 4

FIRST INDIAN ELECTIONS.

Throughout the campaign the uame of Mahatma Gandhi was a magical influence in favour of the party, wrote the Indian corresr pondgut of the London Tiraee on the elections in India. Quietly spinning in a rural colony, Mr Gandhi qnoonsciougly brought thousands of votes into the Congress ballot-bqxes. Many illiterate voters - informed returning officers, particularly in Bihar, that they Wanted to vote for the Mahatma; many of them made puja (worship) to the Congress ballot-boses in the belief that they enshrlned the Mahatma's spirit. Some poor villagers dropped petitions to the gods in the eieetion boxes, havihg impiicit faith in their vofes as a panacea for all their ills and anxieties; ptbers inserted applieations for remission of taxation, an action rather suggestive of hopes that had been held out to them. , Wij)h the numbers of voters lying somewhere between 30,000,000 and 35,000,000 fears had been entertained as to the administrative difficulties connected with the recording of their votes. These were not realised. Even Indian observers have been impressqd with the achievement of the authorities in makipg the necessary polling arrangements, particularly in the brief time at their disposal, Women shrouded in burkas' voted in iarge numbers ; several women candir dates were returned. The system of eoloufed ballot boxes proved valuable to illiterate voters, mapy of whom walked long distanees to record tbeir votes. But age-old customs, were not wholly obscured; voters on camelg traversed great degTert areas to record their votes, and villages in gala dress went in bullock carts or mounted On ponies to the polling gtations.