Public opinion is very much like gravity, a quiet unseen force, which keeps a democracy, especially a continental one like India's, on the ground. Although public opinion often finds expression in demonstrations, newspaper editorials and, more rarely, in mass movements, it is usually a silent force which any politician worth his salt will ignore at his own peril.
But this kind of evaluation of public opinion is, by its very nature, subjective. Therefore, it is little wonder that opinion polls have become an integral part of elections in every democracy in the world. In the West, these are taken so seriously that the result is treated as a foregone conclusion even before polling starts.
India hasn't reached that stage as yet. But opinion polls have found increasing acceptance, especially in the last five years. They have become as much apart of the election scenario as hiring advertising agencies for election campaigns. There are now polls at the drop of a news event, but almost all of them represent opinions in the metro cities which are sometimes projected as the opinion of the nation. The main reason for this is probably the considerable expenditure involved in undertaking a nation-wide poll in a large, diverse and predominantly rural country with poor communications, like India, where a representative sample would have to be in excess of 10,000, as against 1,000 to 1,500 in countries such as the UK or the US.
Since its election forecast of 1979, India Today has been a firm believer in opinion polls as a scientific method of gauging public opinion. Other than the election forecasts, India Today had also experimented, for over a year, with quarterly polls in state capitals, but discontinued them because they were not truly representative of the whole country.
India Today has now decided to commission a truly national opinion poll every six months, to be conducted by psephologist Prannoy Roy and MARG (Marketing and Research Group), on the well-proven election model used by the magazine for the 1980 and 1984 general elections. The uniqueness of this model is that it translates voting intention into Lok Sabha seats, which is really what determines who will rule.
Besides the key question of voting, other topical questions will also be asked. This inaugural poll's questions were caught in the political maelstrom which broke soon after the presidential election. The poll was planned for the Independence day issue, and the 100-odd interviewers of MARG were scheduled to fan out to over 30 representative, parliamentary constituencies all over the country when the expulsion of three MPs and V.P. Singh from the Congress(I) took place. A major logistical feat was involved in adding new questions, in all the various languages, to gauge opinion on the expulsion of V.P. Singh.
An opinion poll of this kind assumes special significance as the silent, illiterate majority which inhabits over five lakh villages has few channels of expressing its opinion between elections. The result is that the close-circuited, incestuous world of urban India, with its vociferous press, believes that whatever it thinks is what the nation wants. In fact, the present India Today-MARG poll clearly demonstrates the existence of a wide urban-rural divide on many issues which currently agonise the city populace.
An opinion poll provides a snapshot at a particular moment of time. Undoubtedly, there will be some who agree with the findings of this poll, and some who don't. Some will find the Congress(I)'s Lok Sabha score too high, and others may find it too low. But as psephologist Roy says: "In an opinion poll, there is no place for preconceived notions."