Opportunity lost

NEW DELHI: To anyone who believes that academic freedom is a value central to a democracy, Ashoka University’s hasty reaction to a research paper delving into the possibility of cheating by the ruling party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is a massive disappointment.

Not only was its self-insertion into the debate uncalled for, but it also exposed the author to social media thuggery by publicly distancing itself from the paper and prevented any chance of a healthy discourse on the issues raised by it.

The paper titled ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy’, was written by Prof. Sabyasachi Das, an assistant professor of political economy at the university. In a carefully worded study, he subjects data from India’s elections to a statistical tool called the McCrary test to detect any ‘discontinuities’ in respect of how close contests, those with a margin of victory less than 5 per cent, were won. The findings are startling:

The 2019 Lok Sabha election stands out as an exception in that a disproportionate and statistically significant share of the close contests were won by the BJP. This tendency was pronounced in states where the BJP was in power and absent where it was not.

Further, this tendency was not in evidence in any of the previous Lok Sabha elections, regardless of which party was in power. It was also absent in Assembly elections held simultaneously with the 2019 Lok Sabha election, and even in those held subsequently.

Of course, this by itself does not prove electoral fraud by the ruling party.

The BJP’s success in flipping close contests could have been due to its better electoral preparedness, its superior resources and its ability to target those constituencies better. Prof Das proceeds to examine this explanation, called the hypothesis of precise control, and finds no data to support; but he does find statistical evidence for an alternative explanation, that there was manipulation of voter lists and voter turnout, perhaps to prevent Muslims from voting, leading to a BJP win.

His data analysis suggests that this manipulation took place at two points in the process: at voter registration, and at the voting stage.

Simply put, the growth rate of Muslim voters in these constituencies shows a noticeable and anomalous slackening in 2019 and there were notable voter anomalies at the local level at the counting stage.

Academics do not have the luxury of making sweeping conclusions, and Prof Das does not make any. He does not conclude that the BJP indulged in electoral fraud in 2019.

In fact, he discounts the popularly debated probability of electronic voting machines being rigged to ensure a BJP victory.

What his analysis suggests is that there could be more to the ruling party’s famed success in flipping close contests than just Amit Shah’s dynamism.

It is for the election referee, the Election Commission, to take cognisance of his analysis and investigate the statistical anomalies Prof Das detects at the constituency level.

Prof Das’s research paper was an opportunity for India’s universities to strike a blow for academic freedom. At a time when India Academic Freedom Index ranking keeps the company of the bottom 30 per cent among 179 countries, it was a chance to take a bold stance for free inquiry. It’s a pity that Ashoka University let it slip.