Page 9 - PS 3

What is Government? / 33

Voting in a rural area: A mark is put on the finger to
make sure that a person casts only one vote.

decisions for the entire population. In India, before Independence, only
These days a government cannot call a small minority was allowed to vote
itself democratic unless it allows what and they therefore came together to
is known as universal adult franchise. determine the fate of the majority.
This means that all adults in the Several people including Gandhiji
country are allowed to vote. were shocked at the unfairness of this
practice and demanded that all adults
But it was not always like this.
Can you believe that there was a time have the right to vote. This is known
as universal adult franchise.
when governments did not allow
women and the poor to participate in Writing in the journal Young India in
elections? In their earliest forms 1931, Gandhiji said, "I cannot possibly
governments allowed only men who bear the idea that a man who has got
owned property and were educated, to wealth should have the vote, but that a
vote. This meant that women, the man who has got character but no
poor, the property-less and the wealth or literacy should have no vote, or
uneducated were not allowed to vote. that a man who works honestly by the
The country was governed by the sweat of his brow day in and day out
rules and regulations that these few should not have the vote for the crime of
men made! being a poor man…".

2020-21