Election Adventures

The Indian parliamentary elections are coming up on April 15th, which means election-related stories dominate the press. Yesterday I read a somewhat gleeful story in the Times of India about how the BJP (major national party)'s prime ministerial candidate, LK Advani, had bought all the online advertising space on India's airwaves. Banners ads promoting Advani's candidacy have since appeared on sites for gay personals, Russian mail order brides and high-class escorts. This is humorous because Advani's party is morally conservative.

India is the world's largest secular democracy. The elections here are very interesting. For one thing, there are a lot more regional parties in India than there are national parties. The two main national parties, BJP and Congress, make alliances with local parties in each state in order to win seats and secure power in the resulting government. India will never be a two-party state.

Compare the power of India's regional and local parties to that of those in the States - oh wait. We don't really have viable regional parties in the States.

The diversity of parties speaks to the diversity of India's electorate. When Barack Obama was running for Pres, we saw some passionate editorials about the waning importance of race in American politics (although the attention given to Obama's race makes perhaps the opposite point). In India, ethnic divisions still reign supreme. In Maharashtra, the state where Mumbai is located, the local Shiv Sena party recently upset their BJP allies by saying that they'd prefer a Marathi Prime Minister over LK Advani. Marathi is the local language and culture of Maharashtra. India has never had a Marathi PM, a fact that sticks in the throats of many Maharashtrans.

India's ethnic divisions are more than cultural. They're physical, too. For years my mother told me that Indians are not a race (at least in the way we use that term in the United States) but it wasn't until I got here that I realized how true that is. India has racial groups as well as ethnic ones. There are Indians who are almost white (Aishwarya Rai), black, and everything in between the two. Indians from the far Northeast states could pass for Chinese. (Of course, many Americans in the far Northeast states are Chinese.)

Today I went for a jaunt outside VT, one of Mumbai's biggest railway stations and a relic from long-ago British rule. VT is a beautiful example of British colonial architecture, but the people outside were infinitely more fascinating. I saw three girls walk by, arm in arm. One wore tight blue jeans and a little black T-shirt that clung to every curve. Another was wearing a loose black salwar kameez, the traditional dress of Indian Hindus. The third wore a full-length hijab.

My point is that while Americans claim to be the most diverse society on Earth, and Obama's inauguration led to a lot of "only in America" sentiment, neither of these things is even remotely true. The idea that ethnic and racial division is unique to the United States is just plain wrong. The belief, cherished by many, that America is a land of religious diversity is laughable in India, a country that plays home to significant populations of every one of the world's religions.