Indian Voters Have Done Good!

Indian voters have always surprised the exit polls. This time they have agreed to give the Congress a free hand. The Congress is the only progressive party in India, that is reasonably well-maintained. The opposition of BJP is based on divisive notions, and age-old traditions, which do not matter, because what matters is food, water, shelter and clothes.

The manifestos of the Congress and BJP are available on the excellent India-Elections site maintained by an independent group. A comparison is illustrative. Not only the Congress manifesto looks more "ready", it also is not based on "what other parties do" and "why we are better". It is based on "let us work for you". Of late, India is seeing not a great leader, but a team of good leaders - Sonia, Manmohan, Chidambaram and Rahul. Not only this team is well-educated and humble, they are keen on putting their best foot forward. This team has the will and ability to take the country to the next level.

If such governance continues with a free hand, which it does now, and the governance works as people have voted it to work, it would be the best fortune for India. The lesson for other political parties are:

• Don't be a bum (left) - when govt is trying hard to improve things, please don't come in the way with populist speeches or withdrawal of support,
  
• Don't play divisive (BJP) - although the regional parties like Mayawati etc are based on one group (in this case Dalits), no national party can stand on only one group. To be able to grow, you must include all.
• Work hard, work well (example of Congress) - there is no room for corrupt/divisive politicians at the top. People at the top must be leaders by example, must be truly concerned with all Indians as one and many.
  

There are high hopes from the Congress team, but a bad apple can spoil the whole thing. A bad apple can turn humble public servants into free-hand-devils. But this is highly unlikely - the Congress team is on a rock-solid foundation. The team has learnt well from the experiences of India's past - socialist policies in economy, nuclear deal, terrorism, etc. India is prudent and progressive. That's the way it should be.

First Thoughts

The birth of this blog coincides with the counting day of 2009 Indian Elections. It's been about 60 years since independence. Although 40% of the voters are first-time voters in these elections, the outcome of the counting is unlikely to reveal new leaders on the face of the led-by-old country.

The median age of India is 23. But the young - are they independent thinkers? Many of the urban youth are. They are cosmopolitan, newly-rich/newly-middle-class and optimistic. Sadly, they only sometimes come out on streets, not as a sustained force. In reality I believe their last-generation-Indian education did not teach much cooperation, but overwhelmingly and invariably focused on competition. As a result, there are more arguments on each topic than there are number of people. There is no youth-led/youth-populated political party.

But even this population of uncooperative but optimistic urban youth is a small minority - let's say 20% of all the youth. I say 20% because that is the ratio of the work-force in India that is trained at all for the work it does - the other 80% never had any vocational training. The youth in rural areas and a lot of urban youths are entangled within the cobwebs of the past -- the cobwebs that are growing thicker by the day.

I can go on for hours, but I don't have that many. So I summarize the cobwebs below, in hope I will dwell upon each of them for the time they (do not) deserve in the future:

- old cobweb 1: Caste System, communalism and divisive politics
- old cobweb 2: Illiteracy and ignorance
- old cobweb 3: Corruption
- new cobweb 1: Competition, never cooperation
- new cobweb 2: Almost no active research in universities
- new cobweb 3: Poor infrastructure

I have reasons to fear that the old cobwebs are still growing stronger (certainly not weaker), only assisted by the new cobwebs.