Go ahead and cast a vote! It isn’t rocket science.
Or perhaps it is?!
Who would know or perhaps realise that behind all the political agendas, manifestos and promises lie a world driven by data, statistics and lots of political battalion swinging questions too.
This book is not for those who don’t understand statistics or know how to interpret data. For the truth finding data, do check this book. For using it as a means to start another social media post war – just hold your horses please!
My Review:
When I started reading the book I thought it would be covering the voting system from the just-got-our-independence days till the current year. While Surjit has included the range of years post independence and the recent decade of BJP government; there have been references to the coalition government also. The impact of the Modi years is being touched upon more the book. The reason could be that it’s the most recent memory of a government that people can recollect or think about.
If you read this book expecting predictions about election outcomes then you need not pick up this book please!
Read this book to –
- Understand the factors influencing voting behaviors
- Growth and educational impact
- Gender behavior during the voting months
- Poverty and income correlation with employment opportunities and promises
- GDP might be a good word to use but difficult to understand in terms of voting
- International viewpoints about India and her growth story
Takeaway –
I enjoyed the fact-finding data in this book, the alluding to various surveys and studies undertaken. Surjit tried being objective in his writing yet it did put a shine on Modi leadership. (This is my perspective)
About the Book:
India has transformed and much has happened since the first Lok Sabha elections in 1951–52. Social media, AI and other technologies make it easy to spin narratives and evade accountability, and to glibly manufacture content, data and analysis. These threaten the development of a responsible civil society.
But then what really matters to voters? Times may have changed, but the substantive basis on which people vote – their perception of leadership and the improvement in their well-being – remains constant. Economist Surjit S.
Bhalla integrates politics, economics and psephology to offer insights into how voters think as India heads into its eighteenth general election.
This book examines historical voting patterns and reveals how these correlate to changes in income, employment, welfare schemes, gender equality and much else. It looks at future conundrums like delimitation. It considers how voter attitudes have changed. This deep dive into data comes up with some counter-intuitive conclusions. Whichever way the 2024 elections go, the reader will gain a better understanding of the hows and whys of voter choices.
About the Author:
Surjit S. Bhalla was executive director for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan at the IMF and served on the PM’s Economic Advisory Council. He has also had stints at the World Bank, the Brookings Institution, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, and was founder-chairman of Oxus Investments. Abhinav Motheram works as a data science consultant at LEAD, Krea University. His research interests lie at the intersection of data quality, processes of data generation and related fields of survey methods. He holds a masters in economics from BITS Pilani.
About the Book Reviewer:
Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com
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