INDIA'S GREAT ELECTION ROAD SHOW
Jyoti Malhotra
Far Eastern Economic Review, May 11, 2009
NEW DEHLI — A priest in a Shiva temple deep inside the Gir Forest in Gujarat made the news recently when he became the only man in India to vote in a polling station set up solely for him. The quirky and the sublime are all part of the great Indian election road show, now wilting in the face of incredible temperatures soaring across the Hindi heartland.
As many as 714 million men and women will end up voting when the five-phase election ends on May 13, but one thing is already clear in this massive exercise: The first, that despite the globalizing power of the fitful economic reforms that have been underway for the better part of 17 years (they began when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was finance minister in 1992), India largely remains inward looking. If the rest of the world is obsessed with the economic downturn, India is still largely consumed with stories as they unfold within.
All this while events evolve dramatically in India’s own neighborhood. In Pakistan the government has ceded political space to the Taliban, in Sri Lanka the pro-Sinhala government of Mahinda Rajapaksa refuses to allow humanitarian aid for Tamil noncombatants claiming it comes in the way of its war on the Tamil Tigers, in Nepal tensions between the new democrats and self-styled Maoists over the sacking of the army chief have reached a fever-pitch, and in Bangladesh the newly installed government of Sheikh Hasina has been gravely challenged by a barely suppressed mutiny within its paramilitary forces.
Jyoti Malhotra
Far Eastern Economic Review, May 11, 2009
NEW DEHLI — A priest in a Shiva temple deep inside the Gir Forest in Gujarat made the news recently when he became the only man in India to vote in a polling station set up solely for him. The quirky and the sublime are all part of the great Indian election road show, now wilting in the face of incredible temperatures soaring across the Hindi heartland.
As many as 714 million men and women will end up voting when the five-phase election ends on May 13, but one thing is already clear in this massive exercise: The first, that despite the globalizing power of the fitful economic reforms that have been underway for the better part of 17 years (they began when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was finance minister in 1992), India largely remains inward looking. If the rest of the world is obsessed with the economic downturn, India is still largely consumed with stories as they unfold within.
All this while events evolve dramatically in India’s own neighborhood. In Pakistan the government has ceded political space to the Taliban, in Sri Lanka the pro-Sinhala government of Mahinda Rajapaksa refuses to allow humanitarian aid for Tamil noncombatants claiming it comes in the way of its war on the Tamil Tigers, in Nepal tensions between the new democrats and self-styled Maoists over the sacking of the army chief have reached a fever-pitch, and in Bangladesh the newly installed government of Sheikh Hasina has been gravely challenged by a barely suppressed mutiny within its paramilitary forces.
(...) [artículo aquí]
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment