Indian politics quiz 2024

A set of questions on Indian politics to warm up for the upcoming election results due on 4 June. Test yourself on what you know and don't on post-independence politics.

After a 44-year gap, I exercised my franchise in this year’s elections. The 1977 elections were probably the most exciting ever, and I followed it keenly even though I was not eligible to vote. This explains why I voted in 1979/80, even though that year’s results were a foregone conclusion. I don’t remember why I did not vote in 1984. Maybe voter apathy and the election following Indira Gandhi’s death made it more one-sided than in 1952.

After 1984, when I joined the Bank, I was perhaps too lazy to update my name on the electoral rolls, given my transfers from one city to another and even shifting residence within cities. I intended to vote in 2014, but I was upset that the electoral authorities in Mumbai decided that my name should not be what I gave them or what was on my Aadhaar card but should also have my father’s and grandfather’s names. They culled out their names from my passport. The Election Commission’s desire to perpetuate my ancestry only dampened my enthusiasm.

By the 2019 elections, I had left the Bank and returned to shifting addresses. I am now hopefully settled in my present address for a long time and went about updating my address on numerous documents. I hope a day will come when one application for a change of address will update one’s address in all databases at one go, including on the voter’s list.

Even though I have been an apathetic voter, I retained my interest in politics as a student, a keen observer, and hopefully a future author on political matters of interest. Deriving from this, I compiled a set of 45 questions. The number holds no relevance. I could have gone higher, but I thought that would be too tiring. And anything less would mean leaving out what I thought should be included.

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