Betwixt and Between the Ballot: An Anthropologist in the Returning Officer’s Chair
When I assumed role as Returning Officer cum SDM for the local body elections, I did not expect my anthropological lens to become my most useful equipment. Yet the moment the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into force, I found myself standing inside a phenomenon I had only read about in the books. What follows are three observations from that stint, read through the lens of the discipline that taught me to see the familiar as strange. I. The Liminal State of Democracy Suspended The period between the dissolution of an elected local body and the swearing-in of the next is a peculiar interregnum. Once the MCC is in place, the developmental machinery freezes. No new work orders can be issued, no fresh schemes announced, no foundation stones laid. The old representatives have departed; the new ones have not yet arrived. The administration governs, but only as a caretaker holding the threshold. This is precisely what Arnold van Gennep called the liminal phase in his Rites ...