South vs North: India's Great Divide
Author: Nilakantan RS
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 269
Price: Rs 599
In 1948, when lawmakers were deciding the shape of Indian democracy, one of the pivotal questions discussed was how to conduct elections in a country as large and diverse as India. They needed to ensure that the system was simple enough for a largely illiterate population to understand and robust enough to suppress voices of secession. The first-past-the-post system (FPTP), although imperfect, satisfied all the criteria at the time. B R Ambedkar believed that along with reservations, the election system would obviate the need for proportional representation, which was