Comments on: What will determine India’s elections?

By: Venkat

Venkat — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

commentators have to also present aletrnate views about BJP(as a non dynastic, nationalist party) and Modi(as an uncorrupt, eficient leader as indicated by India Today Opinion polls). Failure to do so will increase hatered on all sides and the suffrer will be poor Pakistani and Indian.

By: Maritimer

Maritimer — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

In the last 30 years, Indians have voted for change each time in the National elections with the exception of 1984 when Rajiv Gandhi swept the polls on the back of public sympathy for Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
Voting out a government is a natural checks-and-balances in a democratic system. This trend is evident in recent State assembly elections, where non-performing governments are defeated, while good governance is rewarded by the voters.

The main national issues in election ’09 will be unemployment and security from terror attacks. Local issues like development programs for the rural poor and infrastructure projects will be key considerations for many voters. People of India are not bothered about religion or caste. Parties that pursue vote bank politics -the grand old Congress party, the Communists and the Yadavs are losing ground this time. Will the BJP be able to stitch up a post poll alliance with regional parties in South India remains to be seem.

Political stability in the last 10 years has resulted in India’s economy growing consistently at a rate of 7%. Voters will also consider the stability factor in this elections.

By: Walker

Walker — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

If only Air Marshal Ahsgar Khan was an Indian and was the Prime Ministerial candidate!. May be it is time to get Pakistanis and Indians to vote together a team of wise men of such integrity to guide entire S.Asia – what a world it will be. Will dawn mobilise the virtual netizens?

By: Shankar

Shankar — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

AK,
Secularism is the separation of state and government not the abolition of religion or removal of religion based parties. There are a variety of political parties in India which are caste based. There are quite a few which are religion based. But if BJP comes to power, it will not have constitutional power to harm the Muslim’s or Christians. As a matter of fact BJP appointed Abdul Kalam as the President of India. The secular sounding parties like Congress will bend backwards to please the non-Hindu communities. The intelligentsia in India is purely secular. India as a whole acknowledges the enormous contributions made by the Christian community in education, health and social service. In summary, secularism, though a little tenuous, is doing well in India.

That is why the rise of Taliban in Pakistan is the biggest nightmare for India. They will employ every strong point in democracy and secularism to their advantage until they gain control and then destroy everything, every temple, every church, every Gurudwara and every organization that is even remotely secular. We pray to God to give your country the courage to fight them!

By: Venkat

Venkat — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I find Pakistani(and many Indian too) commentators call BJP as just a Hindu fundamentalist party ad nauseum hoping that it will become the truth is truly abhorrent. There are fringe elements in BJP just as there are fringe elements in Congress or Communists. While anyone has every right to express their opinion, a responsible commentator need to present all sides. For example there is no recognition by these commentators that BJP is non dynastic(almost all other parties barring communists are run as personal properties), non minority appeasing(for the sake of votes) natioanlistic party. One may bash BJP’s Modi as a demon but one should also recognize millions of Gujaratis feel otherwise and that is the reason he got re-elected. It is also a fact that he is recognized as No 1 chief Minister in India today. It is a fact that Gujarat has pulled ahead of many other progressive states on many development parameters(for your info Modi did not do development only for Hindus!). I don’t see any Dawn or commentators from any Islamic country daring to present these facts. So bottom line, these biased views builds only more hatered on all sides and the losers are common man!. An apolitical Pakistani or Indian have the same aspiration. To live with freedom and dignity and have economic well being for himself and his family. Building hatered only affects poor common man!! These commentators do not help in any way!!

By: Sourabh Jain

Sourabh Jain — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I read views presented in this forum and saw a consensus that Indians trust the democratic system of governance. Many people have referred to BJP as a non-secular Hindu party. I don’t support this thought. In India Hindus are 84% of the total population and still there in no national party that focuses on Hindu-centric issues and I think this is how it should be. The irony in India is that Hindu votes get divided between parties and so political parties don’t value them. Hindus usually don’t vote for religion and religion is usually not a big election issue. Many political parties pamper minorities so that minority votes can be isolated and used in their interest.
BJP does not pamper minorities and so it has been branded as non-secular. Sometime back Narendra Modi was criticized by many Hindu-outfits for demolishing temples for improving infrastructure in Gujarat. Remember these Hindu-outfits have no political representation. It will be difficult for many to believe that a person like Modi whom the media branded the orchestrator of Gujrat riots, demolished temples. The fact is that, media finds it convenient to brand parties and people and they have branded BJP as non-secular party. BJP has many Muslim workers and the BJP manifesto does not have a single word about Hinduism. BJP had Muslim workers even before it came to power.
Every political party in India knows that they need support from all the communities to come in power. Since past few years I have seen increased concentration on development issues. Caste and religion issues do crop up during election time but they hardly affect the outcome.

By: undemocratic

undemocratic — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

For all those who responded to my previous comment, I am repeating that democracy in a developing 3rd world country with 45% illiteracy only brings the corrupt, criminals and bigoted to the power, which in turn brings inefficiency to overall system. Just count number of criminal MPs in our 540 odd seat parliament, it is something like 200+.

My father used to tell me that only time when he has seen discipline in India was when Indira Gandhi declared an emergency for around 1.5 years.

Just look at how our politicians manipulate the illiterate masses, they bring childish bollywood stars like Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan, Chiranjeevi, Jayalalitha to garner. Are the real issues to be tackled in the country in the minds of any of these politicians or any of these voters. Look at the way how these crooks get votes, by distributing money, liquor and what not.

Is democracy a boon or bane for India? I would say it is a bane. Of course, because of democracy, I can criticise anybody I like, I have religious freedom and I can follow any religion that I like.

But, all these freedom at what cost, just think my friends, overall indiscipline of the population, feces and spit on roads, projects that take decades to complete, police men wielding world war 1 guns not able to even return a decent fire against gunmen wielding AK47s. Even after 6 months of the shameful incident of 26/11 Mumbai attacks, our ‘political leaders’ have not come to a decision to give our police men new guns instead of their world war 1 .303 rifles. How many more decades are needed for these ‘leaders’ to give our police men some decent weapons, may be they will need 10 more 26/11 style attacks to wake them from their slumber.

If it is not liquor and money that decide the votes, then it is caste or religion. It seems like issues that concern development are not all factors.

Democracy is a huge drain on the resources of a poor country like India. If Delhi allocates 100 Rs for a project hardly 5 Rs reach the intended people and you know where the rest of money goes. Do we need such a system to carry on for ever?

Just take the case of China, if Chinese had not implemented their 1 child policy, their population would have been 2.5 billion instead of the current 1.3 billion. This kind of control in China would not have been possible in China if it were a democratic set up. Also, don’t forget that China has a much bigger land mas compared to India and Indian population is tipped to cross that of China’s in another decade or so. Just think of the disaster that is waiting to happen in India. Do our politicians care about any of these things?

What india needs is miltary rule of at least 20 years

By: AK

AK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

“What I also find interesting is that Indian readers continually profess a secular outlook, yet parties like the BJP and Shiv Sena are so popular. What explains their continued popularity. What is it about Hindu nationalism (is that the right way to describe those parties’ ideologies?) that so many people find appealing?”

Well, the truth is that Pakistani terrorism via ‘Non-State Actors’, is the biggest support-booster for right-wing parties like the Shiv Sena. If you take Pakistan out of the equation, I believe, these parties will lose a big chunk of their supporters.

By: Prakash. N

Prakash. N — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Amina Shah:

Don’t be pessimistic about Indian elections. I agree that the system is not perfect but at least, it is in place and giving some results. On the bright side, imagine one fifth of the world population is going to elect its government. Given the complexity of the society, we should appreciate Indian population as it is still united and living as one nation. Yes, we still have poverty. But the poverty has no religion, cast or community. For last 6 decades, the progress in uplifting the poor may not be as expected by our founding fathers but there is significant progress. We have achieved whatever the little progress without compromising national pride and with freedom. Please ask any chinese, they will tell you the importance of freedom. China may be doing better in terms of economy, but life without freedom feels like sleeping in attic of a palace. Hope you will see my point.

By: Rah

Rah — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Some commentators are saying that the plight of Muslims in India is deplorable. This is largely true. But the plight of Muslims is no worse than that of the downtrodden Hindus who constitute a large section of the population. It is nothing to do with religion. There is much economic injustice in India – rich get richer and poor only get marginally better each year. During the last 15 years or so, India’s economy thrived. Now, India must focus on ensuring that the benefits reach the needy including Muslims. I believe that there is generally a mood in the country to do just that. There is much awareness. Institutions are stable and getting stronger. Technology is used pervasively in implementing development and welfare schemes. The next 15 years mark uplifting of poor, thereby creating a huge market which further leads to India becoming a giant economy.

When people think of Indonesia or Malaysia, Islam does not come to mind. People think of them as successful countries giving quality of life to their people. As India becomes prosperous, there will less and less talk about religious this and Islam that.