I am one of the more than 750,000 Indian students studying abroad. Many of us, including myself, are intensely invested in politics and social issues in India. We are acutely aware that the most effective way to express our desire for change is to vote, thus playing our own small part in fashioning the India we wish for. But because we are overseas and thus likely unable to return to our home constituencies on polling day, we are denied the right to vote. This must change: Indian students overseas should be granted the right to vote by proxy or by postal ballot.
An amendment to the Representation of the People Act in 2010 has allowed NRIs to vote – but requires them to be physically present in the polling booth on the day of the vote. That essentially makes this amendment rather meaningless. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect Indians living abroad to have the means – financial, temporal, or otherwise – to return to their constituency to be able to vote.
The role of Indian students in our country’s politics became visible in the recent protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. I too stood on my university campus and expressed my horror at the law; but I felt a kind of cynicism, knowing that many of us, in all likelihood, would have been unable to vote in the elections that brought the present government to power. Words and indignation were all we had; the tremendous power of a single vote was withheld from us. The right to vote lies at the heart of the democracy that makes India unique – but, in all practicality, we are prevented from exercising it, with the result that Indian students abroad, a diaspora that exceeds the population of Noida or Jamshedpur, is a constituency that goes almost entirely unrepresented in any Indian parliament.
I became eligible to vote on January 1, 2018. But because I am studying overseas, I was unable to return to India to vote. Thus, the governments at the Center and in my home state, Delhi, have been elected without having a chance to have my opinions heard. My interest in politics and my desire to change things in my country feel like they ring hollow, considering that I am, for all practical purposes, excluded from the electoral process that is my birthright. This is my situation and that of almost 750,000 other students – not to count the roughly 17.5m Indians working overseas. The ability to vote from overseas should eventually be extended to all NRIs; beginning with the Indian student diaspora is an ideal way to trial the process.
In India, proxy or postal voting is limited to those in government services – proving that the required mechanisms already exist, to some degree. Proxy or postal voting is practiced successfully in multiple countries – not all of which are wealthy or have high-functioning bureaucracies: alongside the United States and most European countries, voters in Mexico, Indonesia, and the Philippines too can vote from overseas. Opposition to this proposal cannot be practical; why, then, can we not vote – and thus express our satisfaction or displeasure with the netas who, after all, are servants of the people?
When the next general election is held, there will doubtless be hundreds of thousands of Indians studying abroad. Many of us dream of using the skills we learn overseas to return home and make our country healthier, cleaner, and more just. We should not be punished, excluded from the democratic process that makes our country great, for our desire to study overseas. The privilege of studying abroad should not come at the cost of our democratic voice. Let the Indian student diaspora vote.