One of my friends was asked this question "What do you see as a difference between politics in India and the United States?" in an interview. His answer was that politics in the US has "evolved". At first glance this might sound like he is referring to the couple of hundred years that the US has been a democracy and how the political process has evolved and comparing it to the 60 years of the democratic process in India. But probing on it a bit more may lead to a different conclusion.
If you ask an Indian what would be the first thing that comes to mind when they think about politics, the answer would be myriad i.e. criminals being elected as MP's and MLA's, rampant corruption, people voting to elect people of their particular caste, political parties courting people of particular caste (vote bank politics)etc. These answers point to the degrading state of affairs in the Indian political system. In addition, due to the new era of coalition politics, decisions on important matters are always pushed to the back burner due to lack of consensus among the ruling party members. No wonder government's keep changing every 2-3 years....
What about the United States..... On the outside the US political system looks hunky-dory.... But if you look at the issues that the US is facing, it feels like politics is the same everywhere... Waste and corruption in the Iraq war, nepotism in how contracts were awarded to the different contractors (no bid contracts).... dividing the country on religious grounds, failure of immigrations reforms, failure of health care reforms etc etc the list goes on and on.... the only difference between the system in the US and India is that there is some sense of awareness of the relavent issues in the US. But things dont seem to go anywhere..... O'well irrespective of where you are, welfare of the country and its people always takes a back burner before furthering of one's personal interests....
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