What made the first general election in India unusual compared to previous democracies in the world?
a) The size of the country and electorate.
b) The lack of a prosperous economy.
c) The absence of literacy among voters.
d) The Communist Party emerging victorious

Choose the correct answer from the given options:

a, b, and c only

The correct answer is Option 3- a, b, and c only

a) The size of the country and electorate.
b) The lack of a prosperous economy.
c) The absence of literacy among voters.

It was not just the size of the country and the electorate that made the first general election in India unusual. The first general election was also the first big test of democracy in a poor and illiterate country. Till then democracy had existed only in the prosperous countries, mainly in Europe and North America, where nearly everyone was literate. By that time many countries in Europe had not given voting rights to all women. In this context India’s experiment with universal adult franchise appeared very bold and risky. An Indian editor called it “the biggest gamble in history”. Organiser, a magazine, wrote that Jawaharlal Nehru “would live to confess the failure of universal adult franchise in India”. A British member of the Indian Civil Service claimed that “a future and more enlightened age will view with astonishment the absurd farce of recording the votes of millions of illiterate people”.