How India's Diverse Democracy Thrives Amidst Global Challenges: A Look at the Elections

THE INDIAN ELECTIONS - NEW YORK TIMES

It is truly the greatest show on Earth, an ode to a diverse and democratic ethos, where over 700 million people vote, each playing a small part in directing their ancient civilization into the future. It is no less impressive when done in a neighborhood that includes destabilizing and violent regions like Pakistan, China, and Burma.

Its challenges are immense, probably more so than anywhere else, particularly in development and fending off terrorism. Considering these challenges and its neighbors, it is even more astounding that the most diverse nation on Earth, with hundreds of languages, all religions, and cultures, is not only surviving but thriving.

The nation where Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism were born is the second-largest Muslim nation on Earth; where Christianity has existed for 2,000 years; where the oldest Jewish synagogues and Jewish communities have resided since the Romans burnt their second temple; where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile reside; where the Zoroastrians from Persia have thrived since being expelled from their ancient homeland; where Armenians, Syrians, and many others have come to live; where the Paris-based OECD said it was the largest economy on Earth for 1,500 of the last 2,000 years, including the second largest only 200 years ago; where three Muslim Presidents have been elected, where a Sikh is Prime Minister, and the head of the ruling party is a Catholic Italian woman; where the President is also a woman, succeeding a Muslim President who, as a rocket scientist, is a national hero; where a booming economy is lifting 40 million out of poverty each year and is expected to have the majority of its population in the middle class, equal to the entire US population, by 2025; where its optimism and vibrancy are manifested in its movies, arts, economic growth, and voting, despite all the incredible challenges and hardships; where all the great powers are vying for influence as it finds its place in the world.

Where all of this is happening is India, and as more than one-tenth of humanity gets ready to vote, it is an inspiration to the entire world.

— V Mitchell, New York, NY

Nothing new in this article. The whole world knows Indian history. But India's grim reality—corruption, poverty, outdated laws, political imbalance, red tape, bureaucracy, regional political gimmicks, etc.—needs to be portrayed first. We stand among the worst in the world on all the above counts. We cannot hang forever on the past glory of how great our country was. We need to face the fact of the present. Seeing reality with tinted rosy glasses does not change the reality. Maybe such publicized articles will keep on being reposted for still another 100 years to show past greatness but not present mess!

Regards

While most of the facts relating to millennia-old history are incontrovertible, these cannot be used up as a fossil fuel but must be kept alive as a renewable resource. For example:

1. While it may be nobody's contention that Zoroastrians from Persia have thrived since being thrown out of their ancient homeland, it is equally true that in India, amidst the talk of minority rights and the games of brinkmanship indulged in by the Congress (the party that has ruled India for over 57 years of her 67 years of Independence), the other minority that has significantly contributed to nation-building, the Parsis, also deserve their due. Right from giving us our first airlines to setting up private steel plants, both in the service and production sectors, in arts, culture, technology, and medicine, in building institutions while being socially responsible, the Parsi community deserves some recognition. Going by the historical anecdotal entry in India from the West coast in Gujarat, they have truly sweetened the milk without making the glass tumbler overflow! So the Parsees who thrived once in India have now relocated to more equitable and just environments for thriving. Even the Tower of Silence in Mumbai, where they perform their last rites, bears a haunted look owing to the near extinction of vultures, who act as natural scavengers of the dead, from this benighted land of ours, where material gains for today have put paid ecological responsibility in disregarding the decimation of these natural scavengers through increasing toxicity of livestock and fauna through the use of chemical, diclofenac, used for increasing milk production, that are perniciously toxic when introduced into the food chain.

2. While we have the oldest synagogues in India in Kochi, Calcutta, and a few other metropolises, our North-Easterly domiciles, especially the fairer sex, are considered second-class citizens in their own country and are humiliated with pejoratively desultory names based on their Mongoloid looks, such as "chinkies," in the national capital!

3. "Muslim Presidents have been elected": At the time of Indian independence, there was no post of President, and our first Prime Minister was Nehru. If the post was so coveted, why did Nehru not become President and leave the job of being Prime Minister open for free and fair competition? That moment in history led to the partition of India and paved the way for the dynasty of Congress to rule India. Churchill famously and profoundly quipped, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." The same can be said of India, 67 years after Independence. Only that the judiciary and media have helped India's democracy maintain a participative and representative character!

4. Our Sikh Prime Minister is not even an elected Lok Sabha member, and his inaction is his defining characteristic since the temptation of his clinging to his credential of being "Mr. Clean" was too alluring to be risked with action that germinated from his intrinsically devious and cunning nature, and thus he has been the Prime Minister by proxy. He is a NOMINATED member AND IN THE LAST 10 YEARS OF HIS TENURE HAS NOT CARED TO VALIDATE HIS ASCENDANCE BY FIGHTING THROUGH THE LOK SABHA SEAT.

5. While the booming economy is lifting 40 million out of poverty each year, that alone cannot be a measure of increased progress, as there is growing inequality. A nation is progressive not when many people have cars, but when the social infrastructure is such that even the average citizen benefits. I silently saluted our erstwhile Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, when he took the metro train to his swearing-in ceremony. A European anthropologist who, after doing research in India, asked why Indians, including the poorer sections, think of themselves as consumers first and citizens later, and consequently answered her own question by saying, "I suppose in your country being a citizen gets you far fewer rights than being a consumer." So, the conclusion that 40 million are being lifted out of poverty each year is reductionist if there is also a widening gap between those who are lifted out of poverty in invoking their rights as a consumer, while those within the vice-like grip of poverty have no voice as citizens, and the gap is not being addressed by our government that has been elected to do so.

My worm's eye view aims at representing the views of the unlettered and unshod masses who have been left at God's mercy in not being represented in the larger bird's eye view that the media may project at the behest of parties in power on the eve of an election that may show her to be the most corrupt and graft-ridden government since our Independence!

Regards