The Future of India

With Indians voting to elect the next government, the scene emerging from most exit polls and political analysts is that of another fractured mandate where no single party will have enough seats to form the government by itself. One of two major parties, Congress or the BJP will win the most number of seats. But what will happen after that is anybody's guess right now.

In this uncertain political times, Ramachandra Guha looks at the past of the Indian elections and wonders how long will the era of coalition politics and uncertinity last.

In recent decades, then, Indian democracy has been increasingly influenced by identity politics, by parties and interests representing (or claiming to represent) various castes, ethnicities, regions, and religions. It is likely that a majority of Outlook readers, themselves urban and cosmopolitan, are not in sympathy with this trend.

Rather than 18-or-20-party coalitions, they would like to see a single party dominating the central government, such that it might frame the rational, sustainable policies this country desperately needs. The question is: will they get such a government in their lifetime?

Some trends are promising. More Indians now live in cities, where the pressures of caste and locality matter less than in the countryside. More Indians now contract marriages outside their communities. With economic development, more Indians are abandoning traditional caste-based occupations. In factories and offices, they work and break bread with Indians of different social backgrounds. These secularising tendencies are reinforced by TV and the Internet, which alert the young to mentalities and lifestyles very different from those of their parents or grandparents.

Can these trends collectively produce an electorate that shall come to vote not on the basis of identity, but with regard to the policies on offer?

Read the complete article at Past and Future of Indian Election