Through the Broken Glass: An Autobiography by T.N. Seshan

2 August 1993: A red-letter day for democracy in India

On this day, elections were indefinitely postponed through an order issued by the Chief Election
Commissioner (CEC), T.N. Seshan. The CEC, ironically, is tasked to ?conduct? elections, so who in
his right mind would do such a thing in a democracy?

Seshan had put everything on the line while signing that order. And it was an indication as to the
lengths he would go to prosecute his designated mandate. And the Supreme Court too did not find
the order to be unlawful.

Before Seshan came on the scene, the Election Commission was increasingly functioning as an
appendage of the government. Over and above that, there was evidence that malpractice and
lawlessness in elections were reaching alarming levels. If that trend were to continue then further
down that track lay the ignominy of a banana republic and the danger of Balkanization.

Fearless to the core, in his autobiography, Through the Broken Glass, Seshan brings to light his years
of struggles to usher in a new era of electoral reforms in India. Not the one to mince words and
Seshan?s devil-may-care attitude and righteous self-awareness took even the Union governments by
surprise. Written by a person who never cowered to the high and mighty, the book gives a noholds-
barred account of the man who revolutionized the electoral process.