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In 1967, the Times of London carried a series of articles titled Indias Disintegrating Democracy written by their Delhi correspondent Neville Maxwell. This is how he describes the mood of the country: the administration is strained and universally believed to be corrupt, the government and the governing party have lost public confidence and belief in themselves as well...[there is] a deep sense of defeat, an alarmed awareness that the future is not only dark but profoundly uncertain. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

These words may well be used to describe the current mood of the country.

However, Maxwell got one crucial detail wrong. He concluded that, while Indians would soon vote in the fourth and surely last general election, the great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed.

India remains an outlier amongst the democracies of the world- an unlikely candidate for the persistence of democracy. We continue to have large levels of illiteracy and poverty, the integrity of most of our government institutions has been compromised by successive governments (with the notable exception of Election Commission), corruption and populism is the norm in our public life and our society continues to struggle with divisions along the lines of religion, caste, language and gender.

The democratic promise of compensating inequality of resources with equality of voice has remained largely unfulfilled as successive generations of politicians have taken the public for a ride. To borrow a phrase from Joseph Stiglitz, the principle of one person-one vote has been replaced by one rupee-one vote.

The odds of history was certainly against us and the decision to trust a largely illiterate and poor population with universal adult franchise in 1947 was, as Ramchandra Guha calls it, an act of faith on part of the framers of our constitution. These fears have been repeatedly expressed since our independence- that an unstable and hierarchical society with large levels of poverty and illiteracy is not suited for the flourishing of democracy. Take for example Indonesia, another developing country that is going into national elections simultaneously with India. Although it received independence in 1945, it became a democracy only 16 years ago with the fall of Suhartos dictatorship.

Our electorate has repeatedly proven these naysayers wrong by coming out to vote in large numbers. The record turnouts in the third phase of the current elections, which happened in some of the most backward regions of the country, have yet again vindicated the wisdom of our forefathers. Orissa saw 67% voting (which was more than Delhi) and Jharkhand had a 58% turnout, an increase of 3% and 8% respectively.

Even the disturbed regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh and Assam had a healthy turnout and relatively peaceful voting. In Bastar, a Maoist stronghold, more than 1 out of 2 registered voters came out to reaffirm their belief in democracy. In Jammu and Kashmir, disregarding a boycott call by separatists, 66% of the electorate turned up to vote in the third phase, an increase of almost 20% from the general elections in 2009.

Mukulika Banerjee notes in her article Elections as Communitas that the most enthusiastic voters in Indian elections are not the well-educated urban middle classes but those who are the poorest, most discriminated against, and least educated, mainly living in villages and small towns. Paradoxically, the biggest defenders of democracy have been those whom it has failed in the most spectacular way. However, they choose to respond with the ballot instead of the bullet.

Banerjee offers several explanations for the puzzle of democracys success in India- a visionary constitution that acts as a bulwark against authoritarianism, the inclusive social policies of successive governments that have tried to integrate the disadvantaged sections of society, levelling impact of election campaigns where the high and mighty are forced to step down and plead with the voters, the festive atmosphere on election day that makes voting a sacrosanct and an egalitarian experience where people across caste, class and religion stand in one line waiting for their chance to vote, the civic pride of being able to flaunt the black ink on your finger once you have voted and so on.

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Lok Sabha elections: Proof that democracy persists in India