generalspeaking

Astounding Statistics

India speaks of itself proudly as the world's largest democracy. And so it most certainly is, even though it came to democracy relatively late in its history. The population of India is second in number only to China. India's population represents over 15% of the world's, with over one billion souls, 40% of whom are younger than fifteen. The majority of the population lives in over a half-million villages, the rest in some 200 towns and cities.

As a result of invasions from various sources, the last being Great Britain, the country has assimilated various cultural and political influences into an amazing synthesis. The majority of Indians are Hindu, that religion based on a caste system, with Hindi the most widely spoken of its 23 official languages (and 1,652 dialects). Also living in India is over 120 million Muslims, along with Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis.

A truly remarkable depth and width of humanity. Despite its diversity, and its huge poverty-stricken populations living among the wealthy of the country, it is a burgeoning hive of humanity, with a zest for life quite unlike the tepid social character seen in wealthier, more staid countries of the world. Hope, in India, truly does spring eternal. The country perpetually forges ahead, and even its indigent exhibit an enterprising spirit of rising above adversity.

And now India is set to go to the polls. There are 543 ridings, 1,055 parties, and close to six thousand candidates. There will be 818,000 polling stations, 1.1 million electronic voting machines handled by four million election personnel, while two million police officers will be tasked to oversee the process. Why police? mostly because of fears of the possibility of terror attacks meant to disrupt the democratic process.

Candidates are multifarious, representing all manner of ideologies, religions, rights groups and nefarious criminal activities under guise of legitimacy. Labour leaders, animal rights activists, untouchables, computer geeks, civil servants, bonded labourers and millionaires all vie for a space in Parliament. Voting will take place over a period of close to a month.

There are over three thousand, five hundred federal and provincial constituencies; the vast enterprise of organization, candidate nominations, recognition of political parties quite simply mind-boggling in their complexity. This is a process not without its own singular problems, for corruption is rampant. The parliament set to be dismissed has the distinction of 125 parliamentarians facing criminal charges, inclusive of murder and rape.

This 15th of the country's general elections will not proceed without its own distinguishing problems, but it will proceed. And the turnover of parliamentarians and leading parties will be peaceful, even though some candidates who will most surely be elected to office will be crooks who have devised measures - illegal to be sure - to ensure their election. Unlike more violently restive countries in the near and far East there will be no second-guessing the peoples' choices.

And although the leading party, the Congress Party, has largely been a dynastic one, it has its counterparts in other democratic nations of the world. The Gandhis continue to dominate India's major party but no party is expected to govern alone in this vast constituency; there will be alliances made to ensure a continuum of purpose. That purpose being to further the interests of the country: to eradicate poverty, combat corruption and preserve the nation.

Certainly the goal of national preservation will, at the very least, be accomplished. The remaining two issues are simply India at its traditional, historical base. Oddly enough although Indira Gandhi was enthroned prime minister with extraordinary and bitterly coercive powers, and her daughter-in-law, Sonia, of Italian heritage, now is the behind-the-scenes manipulator of the Congress Party, a mere 5% of women are political candidates.

Yet voting rights were granted to all women just as they were all men, right from the start, unlike most Western democracies where the franchise was granted women long after men were seen as the logical voting demographic, exclusive of their better halves.

Labels: India, Political Realities, Traditions

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, April 16, 2009