In 1999, Trilochan Sastry got 11 fellow IIM professors to sign up for the Association for Democratic Reforms. 25 years later, the non-profit has chalked up many successes and it has a lot of fuel for more voter-friendly battles

Reforms to make elections free and fair in India — to the extent we see today — are attributed often to TN Seshan, the chief election commissioner from 1990 to 1996 for his proactive measures to curb electoral malpractices. During his time, booth-capturing, electoral-roll malpractices and rigging of votes (he famously described it as the ‘rig veda of polls’) became history.

Then came the larger fight for institutional reforms cleaning up the electoral system from the ground up, with a greater scrutiny on candidates, parties and much-overlooked trail of electoral spending. It was the little-known non-profit Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) that brought about transparency and accountability to our electoral process.