If you thought the 2000 United States presidential election was a disaster unlike anything before, imagine what it would be like if we would have experienced what the Indian general elections are beginning to experience.
Unlike the mail-in-ballot system, or even the “not simple enough” electronic voting system, The Economist reported in the April 16 issue that, “India’s general election will be spread out over five stages, taking four weeks and involving 6.5 million staff members.
In 543 constituencies, 4,617 candidates, representing some 300 parties, will compete for the ballots of an electorate of 417 million eligible voters. In 828,804 polling stations, 1,368,430 simple, robust and apparently tamper-proof electronic voting machines will be deployed.” So in comparison to our disaster, India’s could possibly be a disaster times 1 million. That could even be an understatement.
As for the 300 candidates, it is quite difficult not to be impressed by those numbers since most people here probably don’t even know their own state representative. And as for us fighting over whether or not our country is “ready” for an “African-American” president, whatever the “melting pot” consists of here in the United States, I highly doubt it is anything like a diverse country of more than 30 main languages and six main religions with a Hindu caste system, a tradition of hierarchy seemingly at odds with a system of universal suffrage.
Until now, it has often been difficult for Indians to exercise their legitimate right to choose their state officials, and here we are whining that we in the United States have limited options.
Moreover, The Economist also reported that India’s voters will now “have a chance to judge five years of government by a coalition led by the Congress party and its elderly prime minister, Manmohan Singh. … Yet Mr. Singh’s government has made scant progress towards one of the main goals it set itself in 2004.”
The article continued to point out that unswerving democracy in this country is vital to most of the population’s well-being, although instituting policy is seemingly unattainable, stating the progress that was intended was “to reform India’s creaking, corrupt administrative structures so that policies formulated in Delhi might actually be implemented in the villages where most Indians still live.
Partly because of that failure, and despite sharp falls in the poverty rate, appalling numbers of Indians are still desperately poor. One quarter of the world’s malnourished live in India, among them 40 percent of all Indian children under five.”
As in other countries, the Indian election is not much different. However, when a state has about one-sixth of the world living within it, campaigns are primarily dominated by money and intimidation. Many self-interested candidates will seek votes in the most poverty-stricken parts of the country, appealing to them through their immediate pocketbooks and not actually caring about long-term social or economic change.
And at the end of the day, the election will not turn out to be any different than the current status of the Indian Parliament. The current quarter of the members face criminal charges, including murder, rape and kidnapping. In reality, the choice between the 300 candidates always remains chosen for them. The hopeful Indian voters might one day have their promises fulfilled, but not today.