SPECIAL ARTICLE Do Urban Voters in India Vote Less? Kanchan Chandra, Alan Potter The conventional wisdom that urban voters in India vote ndia has so far been a predominantly rural democracy, but less, the authors argue, rests on a shaky empirical the balance between its rural and urban population is now changing. Although more than two-thirds of its population foundation: they describe the errors and biases I continues to live in rural areas (according to the 2011 census, 69% associated with three main methods of estimating of the Indian population lives in rural areas, and 31% in urban urban turnout in India, and note that, even when taken areas), the absolute increase in persons living in urban areas at face value, these measures tell us only about in the 2001–11 decade was greater than the absolute increase in persons living in rural areas for the fi rst time since independence metropolitan India, but not about small towns. Then, (Census of India 2011a). The declining trend in the annual they use new data to argue that urbanisation in growth rate of the urban population in previous decades was parliamentary elections since at least 1980 is associated, also reversed in the 2001–11 decade (Government of India 2011a, other things being equal, with lower turnout within but Table 1.7, p 20; Bhagat 2011). By 2050, according to a projection by the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 50% of not across states, and that within states, this negative the Indian population will live in urban areas (United Nations relationship holds for the smaller towns as well as 2014, Annex Table A2).1 metropolitan cities since at least 1989. In comparative terms, the share of the urban population in India, and the rate at which it is growing are both modest. In China, for example, more than half of the population (54%) already lives in urban areas (United Nations 2014, Annex Table A1). By 2050, over three quarters of China’s population (76%) will live in urban areas, compared to only half of India’s (United Nations 2014, Annex Table A2). Closer to home, three of India’s South Asian neighbours—Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan—already have a higher percentage of the population living in urban areas (34%, 38% and 38%, respectively) (United Nations 2014, Annex Table A1). The percentage of the popula- tion that is projected to be urban by 2050 in these three coun- tries is also higher than in India (56%, 55% and 57% respec- tively) (United Nations 2014, Annex Table A2). Elsewhere in the developing world, such as in Africa, there are also many countries which have a higher percentage of urban dwellers, and are expected to grow at faster rates between now and 2050 (United Nations 2014: 11, 36–37, Annex Tables A1 and A2). But the sheer size of India’s population means that the absolute number of urban dwellers in India, at 410 million in 2014, is already second only to China (United Nations 2014, Annex Table A1).2 It also means that, even though most of its voters An Appendix to the text is available on the EPW website. still live in rural areas, India has the largest pool of urban We are grateful to Adam Auerbach for generously sharing his data, to voters in the democratic world. And even this modest rate of Adam Auerbach, Anjali Bohlken, Poulomi Chakravarti and Francesca urbanisation is shifting the balance between rural and urban Jensenius for their thoughtful comments and Himanshu Mistry of voters in India, so that in just three decades, it will not be a NYU’s Data Services for expert GIS advice. Needless to say, any errors predominantly rural democracy but one in which rural and are our own. urban voters are equally balanced. Kanchan Chandra ([email protected]) teaches at the How might urbanisation affect the nature of democratic Department of Politics, New York University. Alan Potter (alan.potter.jr@ participation? The conventional wisdom on contemporary gmail.com) received his PhD in Politics from New York University in 2016. Indian politics is that urban voters vote less than rural voters, 58 SEPTEMBER 24, 2016 vol lI no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE implying that as India urbanises, its democracy may lose the Alam (2010) and Bhavnani and Jensenius (2015) but not yet in- highly participatory character which it has had in recent years. corporated into analyses and interpretations based on these data. As a news report states baldly: “Rural India is more active This article tries to put the assessments of urban participation when it comes to voting than urban India. This is a known fact” in India on a sturdier empirical foundation in two ways: First, (Tewari 2014a, 2014b, see also Times of India 2011). we document a number of sources of error and bias in each of But this cannot be accepted as a “known fact” for two reasons. the three methods not addressed previously and then suggest First, previous work shows only that turnout in metropolitan ways in which these errors and biases can be compensated for constituencies, located mostly in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and, in analyses based on these data, and ways in which they should depending on the cut-off, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, be taken into account in any interpretation of constituency-level is signifi cantly lower than in other types of constituencies data on urbanisation. Second, we introduce two new measures (Auerbach 2015; Yadav 1999, 2000, Palshikar and Kumar 2004; of urbanisation across parliamentary constituencies. Building on Kumar 2009; Falcao 2009; National Election Study 2014). But Auerbach 2015, we introduce an improved density-based measure most of India’s urban population lives in small and medium of urbanisation which, we argue, is the best of three imperfect size towns with a population of less than a million (10 lakhs) methods for comparing trends in urban turnout (or other aspects (Figure 2). The story of metropolitan turnout, then, is only a of behaviour associated with urbanisation) across time. We also small piece of the overall story of urban turnout in India. generate a second, area-weighted measure by matching census When it comes to voters in smaller and medium size towns, towns and villages to electoral constituencies, and use it to check the scholarly conclusions are not clear. The data from the the density-based measure (Chandra and Potter 2016). The data National Election Studies (NES) indicate that turnout in India’s set containing both measures is included in the Appendix (avail- “mixed” constituencies, where these small and medium size able on EPW website). towns are likely to be located, is either no different from turn- Based on this data set and assessment of the errors and biases out in mostly rural constituencies (Yadav 1999, Table 10) or associated with it, we conduct a preliminary analysis of urbanisa- actually higher than turnout in highly rural constituencies and tion and turnout in parliamentary elections between 1977–2014, in metropolitan ones (Palshikar and Kumar 2004; Kumar 2009; using state-fi xed effects as a fi rst-cut method for taking some of Falcao 2009; National Election Study 2014). Studies based on the errors described here into account. The analysis suggests that NES data which argue that urban turnout in India is lower than within states, there is indeed a negative relationship between rural turnout in parliamentary elections, including some of our urbanisation and turnout in parliamentary elections since 1980. own previous work, usually ignore this fact (Jaffrelot 2008; But it does not support the claim that the negative relationship Chandra 2013). Studies based on other data also ignore constitu- between urbanisation and turnout holds across states. encies with small and medium size towns: Auerbach 2015 for In the 1980s this negative relationship appears to have been instance does not address the relationship between urbanisation driven mainly by the metropolitan constituencies. But at least and turnout in constituencies with small and medium size towns since 1989, it holds also in constituencies which house small although the data introduced there could have been used for and medium size towns: that is, the relationship holds even when this purpose in principle, while Joshi (2014), who studies urban we exclude the major metropolitan constituencies. If the recent turnout in local elections, also focuses on the six “megacities” past is any indication of future trends, then these results suggest (Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata), that as India urbanises, voter participation in parliamentary and larger cities within Gujarat instead of the smaller towns. elections in urban areas may indeed decline relative to rural Second, constituency-level analyses of the relationship areas within the same state, or at least slow in its rate of increase. between urbanisation and turnout rest on a relatively shaky We do not propose an argument about why voters in more empirical foundation to the extent that they do not account for urbanised constituencies might vote less in parliamentary the errors and biases introduced by the method of matching elections than those in rural constituencies within the same electoral constituencies, according to which data on electors state, or conduct multivariate analyses of voter turnout in and turnout are reported, and census units, according to these elections, or investigate the relationship between urban- which data on urban populations is reported. Previous studies isation and turnout in other types of elections (for example, in have relied on one of the three methods to estimate urban legislative assemblies or local governments). We also do not turnout in India as a whole: (i) matching census units to electoral examine aspects of political behaviour other than turnout units manually by utilising polling booth data (for example, NES which may be related to urbanisation (for instance, patterns of data, Alam 2010; Shashidharan 2013); (ii) using GIS-based area party competition or violence).