Mumbai, India

ON Thursday morning, my neighbors and I joined an orderly line in front of the election desk at the end of our street. We did what the public-service ads had been urging us to do for weeks: “Give them the finger.” The polling officer didn’t even raise her head. After dipping a plastic straw into a bottle of purple ink, she drew a blotchy line down the middle finger of my left hand. Then I stepped up to the voting machine to press a button in India’s 15th general election.

The scene was repeating itself across Mumbai. At another polling station, I saw Bollywood B-listers happily show off their ink-smeared digits to TV cameras. A practice that had originally been instituted to ward off electoral scams like ballot-box stuffing (we call it “booth capturing”) was transformed into a proud reaffirmation of faith in Indian democracy.

In the weeks leading up to this election, the ink smearing became a source of inspiration for a barrage of pun-studded campaigns aimed at getting normally apathetic middle-class Indians to fulfill their civic responsibility. The election  with more than 714 million voters  was also a fantastic advertising opportunity. An automobile parts company ran an ad of a finger imprinted with an ink mark in the shape of a car battery. “Vote for a trouble-free five-year term,” was its message. A purveyor of tea, India’s pick-me-up, declared: “If you continue sleeping, so will our politicians. Wake up and vote!”

Image Credit... Emma Houlston

On Thursday, many Indians ignored that advice. Turnout was sluggish across the city, but the figures were especially disappointing in affluent South Mumbai, which had been a particular focus of the get-out-the-vote effort. Only 43.3 percent of eligible voters in the area exercised their franchise, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. Rich Indians have long known that they command more powerful means to influence politicians than votes.