PSEPHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION:

• Psephology is simply the study of elections or survey for the prediction of election results.
• It basically depicts the election campaigns, election processes, the participants and employs statistical analysis to evaluate, analyse and interpret the predicted results on the basis of studying the people's behaviour.

Psephology is derived from a Greek word Psephos meaning pebbles. An interesting story is related to the the adoption of this name. Earlier the pebbles(ballots) were thrown into an urns which represented the vote rate of elections in Athens, Greece.

EMERGENCE AND PROCEDURE FOLLOWED:

• For the first elections, there was no need for the election study as there was a single party which had a clear majority.
• But emergence of many parties in the late 1960's had led to the need for the psephology to emerge.
• In 1960's, the congress suffered its majority in centre and the states.
• There was a complete destabilization of the congress and apprehensions of a new party coming to power.
• So these circumstances attracted the social scientists and journalists to research upon the election conditions.
• Few of the journalists began predicting the voting behaviour, political perceptions, party preferences among the people and selection of candidates, election campaigning processes by the political parties to attract votes. They also cover the issues among the political parties and their deeds over years, good or bad.
• In short they started to work on the back screen of elections noting the factors influencing voting behaviour like socio-economic status, castes, education, occupation, class, caste, religion etc.
• They follow a sampling method in the opinion polls collecting the information and perspectives from the individuals.
• But until 1980s, there was no spirit among the psephologists as they were politically driven and congress centred.
• Then came a ray of hope, the Prannoy roy, an economist who anchored sshows devoted to elections analysis thus popularising psephology. He also introduced NDTV in 1995 for this sole purpose.
• The psephology is mainly based on the fact that sociological character of the voters reflecting the construction of opinions about the political parties.
• They utilise the past election facts, figures and opinion polls to come to a conclusion. They check for the trends and swings in votes and analyse the reasons for the shift.
• Surveys, these days are also carried out by the private  journalists. If they are non private psephologists, they would be backed by the support and funds of the government.
• They analyse and investigate by interviewing the people or the voters of the particular area. Then they analyse few questions like, ' Why did one party win over the other?',' Why did they win with larger majority or smaller?', 'the voter turn out rate, more or less?', 'influence of different backgrounds of the voters to elect their leader' etc.
• The gradual interviews of the local voters help them to know the transitions in their decisions.

PROBLEMS OF PSEPHOLOGY IN THE PRESENT DAY:

• The gathering of people or the voters for the information needed because of  the small community behaviour is the biggest challenge for them.
• India, being the most populous democratic country, gathering the different views of people is also taken for challenge.
• An individual sample doesn't mean a sample of the entire community.
• This method of collecting information is very expensive and time consuming.
• The conclusions of psephologists are generally not particular but quantitative. Thus the qualitative part is questioned in this aspect.
• There are numerous experiments conducted by distinguished psephologists thus leading to conflict of opinions, results and interprets. Some of their results are true and few embarrassing.
• Manipulation of the polls by the psephologists in the present day is one of the toughest problems to overcome. They do it according to their sponsors guidelines.
• People may truely not come out with their opinions in apprehension or fear.

MY PERSPECTIVE:

• In today's world, Psephology or election study is making a very great stand in influencing the people's opinions about the political party, their deeds and then cast their vote according to that.
• The credit for a drastic change in the people's opinion from supporting the sole congress in the early years of independence to open up their mindset and encourage different parties goes to the psephologists.
• In a democratic country like India, representatives play a major role. And people should choose such representatives to rule our country. Thus people should be careful enough and aware of the the things going on in the parliament and behind screens. So the repetitive process of studying the elections would help them to  understand a political party keenly and cast their vote accordingly.
• According to me, there must be an organisation governing the entire process of election study which has no bounding with the political parties influence. They should be given autonomous powers which works for public, to make them aware of the behind the curtains acts of the political parties and guide them in a right way.
• In this process of psephology, people play an important role. So they should be made aware of the reality and should not be dodged with the games of them.
• The psephologists must come up with different ideas in order to make the entire process a well planned, cheaper and a time saving one.
• They may come up with the electronic means to approach people like that of e-banking, e-commerce etc, which may help them in their cause to reach the people in the nook and corners and collect the information through the new generation internet. They should introduce e-opinion, e-polls etc.
• There is a vital role played by the psephologists, as the elections play a very important role in all the democratic countries. So they should maintain transparency and live up to the levels of trust and expectations of the people and enlighten them.