The Indelible Mark of Democracy

Conducting elections in the world's largest democracy is not an easy task. How do you combat malpractices such as identity theft and double voting? India has come up with a magical solution for this problem: the indelible ink.

A woman flaunts her ink-marked finger after casting her vote I Source: Danish Siddiqui/REUTERS

One elemental part of any democracy is its elections**—**people’s freedom to choose their leaders. And the planet witnesses its biggest democratic exercise in India. In the 2019 general election, India had over 900 million eligible voters. Not many countries in the world have a total population this high. So comes the big question: How do you go about conducting this drill of democracy among multitudes of participants without electoral fraud? Well, one magical potion that comes to the rescue during the election season is indelible ink or electoral ink.

Once the vote is cast, a small mark of ink is applied to the nail and cuticle of the voter’s index finger, which stays on for weeks. Not only does it help in eliminating voter fraud and double voting, but it also emanates a sense of pride among the voters, as they have now become a part of shaping the India story. No wonder during the elections, social media is filled with images of people flashing their tinted forefinger as a badge of honour.

The man who came up with the idea of indelible ink was Sukumar Sen, India’s first Chief Election Commissioner and an unsung hero of Indian democracy. He gave the task of creating this unique ink to the National Physical Laboratory of India (NPL). After a few hits and misses, the chemists at the NPL devised a formula by combining various chemicals, dyes, and silver nitrate. This mixture, upon reaction, produces silver chloride which is insoluble in water. And in this fashion, the indelible ink was on its way to becoming an interwoven part of the Indian elections.

Manufacturing of indelible ink I Source: Business Today

Later, for manufacturing this special ink, NPL reached out to a government-owned company called Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited or MPVL (formerly Mysore Lac and Paints Limited) with the closely guarded formula. The company was founded in 1937, during the reign of Maharaja Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar (or Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV), the then Maharaja of Mysore and one of the richest men in the world at the time. Apart from founding the company, the Maharaja had a penchant for Rolls Royce cars, which he bought in batches of seven (his lucky number). The cars were not just for his own delight; sometimes his staff were also chauffeured around the town and palace in these. To this day, the same company remains the sole manufacturer of indelible ink, making the Election Commission of India one of its biggest customers.

The first mark left by the indelible ink on voters’ fingers was during the third general election of India in 1962. A total of 3,72,923 bottles of ink were supplied to various states. This method proved to be effective in tackling identity theft. Thus, it comes as no surprise that India still uses the trusted indelible ink method to conduct fair elections.

MPVL never remained stuck on its traditional ways; instead, it developed innovative marker pens of less concentrated indelible ink for the 2017 polio drive in southern states, as children are prone to putting fingers in their mouths. They are testing the same marker pens that can be used in future elections, replacing the ink bottles. Even the Reserve Bank of India ordered indelible ink after demonetisation to mark people who had exchanged their old currency notes. Today, indelible ink is reportedly exported to over thirty-five countries.

In a land so diverse and multicultural, indelible ink has become a common mark shared by all Indians.